BC's rural islands are unlike anywhere else in the Province. Their economies aren't built through policy binders or planning documents alone — they're built by the people who call these places home: local business owners, volunteers, artists, farmers, and fishers, all connected by relationships that shift with the seasons, the land, and the water.
The absence of a coordinated approach to collecting economic information at the community level has meant that local voices, local realities, and local opportunities have too often been left out of the bigger picture — this imbalance leaves rural coastal and remote regions chronically misunderstood, underfunded, underserved, and out of the decisions that matter most to island residents, businesses, and community building organizations.
Introducing Communities Talking
The Communities Talking Pilot Project directly addresses this imbalance. An initiative of the Rural Island Economic Partnership (RIEP) and funded by the Ministry of Jobs and Economic Growth through the Rural Economic Diversification & Infrastructure Program (REDIP), its mission is simple yet ambitious: to ensure local voices, realities, and opportunities actively shape decision-making.
Redefining Success From the Ground Up
Provincial and federal datasets are useful, yet they miss the texture of everyday island life — informal economies, seasonal labour shifts, and the relationships that actually shape how people experience their local economy.
Communities Talking flips the script. Instead of relying solely on outside metrics, the Project blends traditional research methods with Indigenous-led storytelling and lived community experience. The goal is a clearer, more honest path toward economic health and well-being for rural islands — one defined by the people living it, not just the numbers describing it.
This ground-up approach gives islanders practical tools to:
- Advocate for equitable funding
- Advance local planning efforts
- Shape economic decisions that support job creation, business retention, and the right kind of investment
From a Three-Island Pilot to Province-Wide Change
The Project is currently being piloted on three islands — Cortes, Gabriola, and Quadra — With the goal to reach much further. This pilot is designed as a model that can eventually scale across all 18 of BC's rural islands — communities that are collectively home to thousands of small businesses and more than 40,000 residents.
Driving Systemic Transformation
By learning from this Pilot, the Project aims to transform the broader economic data landscape—shifting from top-down economic modeling to a deeply rooted, comprehensive picture of BC's rural islands that will permanently alter how policy, funding, and economic development decisions are made.
Culturally grounded, locally driven evidence helps external decision-makers allocate resources more effectively. By honoring local voices, the Project builds this evidence base—shifting who holds authority to define economic priorities, and giving communities the leverage to advocate for fairer funding, smarter planning, and true, self-determined resilience.
The Innovation Behind Communities Talking: The Community Voice Network
Understanding and improving an island’s economy shouldn't be complicated—it should be simple, practical, and accessible to everyone. Enter the Community Voice Network: an innovative, values-based, community-led information hub. While traditional dashboards only show where a community has been, the Community Voice Network will bring data to life through an interconnected web of ongoing conversations, offering an accurate, clear, and real-time picture of each island’s socio-economic realities.
The Network will draw on multiple sources: research and narratives already gathered by island businesses and community organizations, perspectives from island Indigenous communities, and established data from BC Stats, BC Labour Market Analytics, and Statistics Canada.
What Community Voice Network Will Feature:
- Local "Lived" Data— capturing experiential, granular narrative community information;
- Inclusive Data— deep demographic insight that ensures First Nations Economic Development organizations and Indigenous community members are accurately represented;
- Cross-Island Benchmarking— connecting communities so they can learn from each other's insights and experiences;
- Real-Time Mapping— following live economic activity alongside historical data and Census milestones
Together, these features are designed to help communities identify new revenue opportunities, support emerging sectors, boost local job creation, and attract the kind of investment that aligns with local values and priorities.
Built on a Foundation of Data Sovereignty
At the heart of the Community Voice Network is a simple principle: communities control their own information.
Through CVN, locals can describe what they need or offer in their own words — no rigid forms, no forced categories. Participants control their own notifications, choosing exactly what updates they receive, and can adjust their involvement as their needs change. There's no new account or app required;
CVN is designed to work with the ways people already communicate.
CVN also helps people answer a deceptively simple question: Where do I fit in? Whether as an individual buyer, seller, or worker, or as an organization — a chamber of commerce, an economic development agency, a business owner, or an investor — users can custom-build how they connect: buying, selling, sharing, notifying, or inviting.
Every community and Nation retains full control over their own data, shared and used on their own terms, guided by their own protocols and priorities. Every connection made, and every data point added, contributes to a living picture of island economic life — one built by islanders, for islanders, and shared on their terms.
To Learn More
Contact Project Manager Evan Thibault at evan@ruralislandspartnership.ca
More questions answered in Communities Talking FAQs.
