B.C. had the biggest job growth in Canada last month

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — British Columbia was only province in the nation with more people working last month, and the province-wide jobless rate held at 6.6 per cent.

StatsCanada numbers show B.C. created another 14,000 jobs, resulting in total job growth by three per cent and bringing the number to 69,000 in the past year.

Bank of Montreal economist Robert Kavcic says that puts this province far ahead of all the others in the country.

However, the province-wide numbers do not reflect what’s happening in every region of the province. This includes the Northeast, where the rate is up to a previously unthinkable 9.2 per cent, and trailing only the Thompson-Okanagan region at 9.3 per cent.

In fairness to her, while others may have done so, the disparity in the numbers was not lost in the February analysis of Shirley Bond, Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training.

It can be assumed that comment was aimed squarely at B.C.’s proposed LNG projects seen by many as critical to economic recovery in this region — where in February of last year, the rate was below four per cent for the fifth consecutive month.

That means, there’s more than an artificially created time zone, which aligns this region, much more closely with Alberta, than most of B.C., and the new Stats. Canada February numbers for that province are flat out shocking.

For decades, Alberta was the leading so-called ‘have province’ with a virtual lock on having one of the lowest jobless rates in the country. But that rate jumped to 7.9 per cent last month, and is now the highest provincial rate west of Atlantic Canada.

In fact, with Quebec’s rate holding steady at 7.6 per cent, it was the first and only other time, since a four-month stretch between 1986 and 1987, the nation’s leading “have not province” had a rate lower than that of Alberta.