As Premier Christy Clark tours B.C. to promote her jobs plan, people on unemployment-plagued Vancouver Island are feeling left out.
Nanaimo is struggling with the province's highest unemployment rate at more than 12 per cent, but neither it nor any other city on the island will be included in the premier's job-creation blitz.
Mayor John Ruttan says that's disappointing.
"We need the help and we need the help now. Job creation is really beyond the mandate of a municipality," he told CTV News.
Unemployment was far worse in the spring, when Nanaimo suffered from a drop in tourism, weak retail sales and a struggling restaurant sector that some say has been battered by the HST.
At the Thirsty Camel restaurant, Ilan Goldenblatt recently put his entire staff on the unemployment line.
"This is definitely the toughest period right now," he said.
"Whoever wants to survive the slowdown has to become lean and take more of the work on themselves, but that does not bode well for the young people coming out of school."
Job-seeker Derek Leeming says he's felt a change in times, too.
"The problem is I used to be able to walk onto a jobsite and get hired and I'd make good money -- and I can't do that anymore," he said.
Nanaimo's NDP MLA Leonard Krog says the oversight in Clark's job tour is unacceptable.
"The fact the premier is ignoring literally a fifth of the province of British Columbia's population, and particularly my own community where unemployment is so high, I just find absolutely appalling," he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jim Beatty
