Economic Development Strategy

Resourceful Fort St. John. Industrious, hard-working, and proud. A destination for good jobs and people who dream about a better future for themselves and family - and achieve it. Fort St. John has worked hard in the last decade to build a city people are proud of – a place where people… stay. Downtown enhancement, and additional recreation amenities and community events have led our energetic pathway in recent times. Check any perception of near north Fort St. John at the door; Fort St. John is on the rise. While our Big Two energy and forestry industries have built a strong economic foundation, they are both in an era of stable employment.

Challenge 1:
We need to be able to feed the energy, forestry and general economic machine by working together on workforce attraction – from workplace incentivization to a more aggressive, uplifting community brand and marketing.

Challenge 2: 
The world is rapidly evolving and we need to explore energy 2.0 and forestry value-add opportunities.

Challenge 3: 
We need to nurture economic diversification. Entrepreneurship – which can live anywhere and offer products and services to the world – will lead our diversification path forward. From home to business incubator space to market, we aim to be an entrepreneur hub in business-friendly Fort St. John. Did you know the Peace region represents 30% of land farmed in BC? How about Fort St. John having 1400 hotel rooms, and being one of a small handful of Canadian destinations for speedskating events? Agriculture value-add and tourism offer diversification pathways. We can grow our own in Fort St. John – be it entrepreneurship, sports centre of excellence, or agriculture. All it takes is our get ‘er done attitude and elbow grease. For us, anything is possible.

Build an indoor multi-purpose recreation facility. Aggressively work to resolve our healthcare access challenge. The carts and the horses matter; we need to address key community development issues to achieve a prosperous economic future.

There’s tremendous opportunity for Indigenous partnerships, and we can sell City land to make amazing things happen – two of six BIG moves that can be transformative for our community if we make progress. 

Welcome to the City of Fort St. John Economic Development Strategy (2023-2028), the ONE plan that works to connect the dots between our economic and community development aspirations for an ambitious future. Power up. Let’s go get it.