David Baxter wants you to picture Clint Eastwood in a bathtub with water up to his chin.

"If you think of the level of water in a tub as the strength of the economy, exports increase the level and imports decrease it," Baxter said. "And it's important that the level of water remains high, because if the water in this tub drops low enough, you'll see that Clint has - a gun."

Baxter, executive director of the Urban Futures Institute, enjoys drawing a colourful analogy while explaining economic theories. He used the image of Eastwood as a bathing beauty to illustrate a few simple facts in his keynote speech to members of B.C.'s Truck Loggers Association (TLA) at their 62nd annual convention held last week in downtown Vancouver.

The economic futurist described exports as one of the most important elements of the provincial economy - akin to keeping the tub topped up and the jets running.

Baxter said other elements, including consumption, investment and government spending, are little more than currents and bubbles in the tub that "create a lot of froth, but in the end don't make a significant difference to the level of the water - the strength of the economy."

The bottom line, he added, is to find a way to ensure the province has a strong export base. "Exports give us the money to buy imports," Baxter said, "and imports allow us to define our standard of living."

A province that manages its resources properly can then afford to import the luxury goods demanded by its citizenry, he added.

But Baxter did more than come clean on the role of exports in B.C.'s economy.

"What we have in British Columbia is a schizophrenic disconnect," he told the truck loggers. "We think the money for education and health care in the province comes from somewhere, but we certainly don't have the understanding that it comes from our resource industries."

He added that British Columbians are fooling themselves if they believe the hype that cities are the economic engines of the province.

Citing findings from Regions & Resources: The Foundations of British Columbia's Economic Base, a recently issued report by the Urban Futures Institute, Baxter stated his case for the importance of the resource economy. The report outlines how the dominant engines of B.C.'s economy remain the province's natural resources and attributes a full two-thirds of the province's export income to fishing, mining and forestry.

He noted that while census data shows little growth will occur in the youth and middle-age demographic, the population of British Columbians over 65 is expected to more than double. And with an aging population, he said, comes an increase in health care costs.

As the younger population continues to decline, the report anticipates many future workers will have to come from outside provincial boundaries. "In B.C., since roughly the same percentage of the population is joining the workforce as is leaving it, there will be increasing competition for a more limited work force," Baxter predicted.

Principal findings of the report indicated that while British Columbia has a population that is predominantly urban (with 57 per cent of people residing in the Lower Mainland and eight per cent in the capital district in and around Victoria), metropolitan regions do not dominate the province's economic base. In 2001, 66 per cent of the province's $28.5 billion in international exports originated in non-metropolitan regions.

Baxter also noted that while the bulk of services still come from the urban parts of the province (68 per cent of the $9.1 billion that were exported internationally in 2001), 75 per cent of the goods that were exported came from non-metropolitan regions.

Figures were similarly reflected in provincial exportation.

Sixty-eight per cent of inter-provincial service-based exports came from metropolitan B.C, while 75 per cent of the tangible goods exported came from rural regions.

Metaphorically hopping out of the bathtub and onto a train, Baxter argued that rather than being the engines that drive the province, cities are more like the dining cars where residents "are engaged in servicing themselves and each other" while contributing no more than a third of the economic impetus to the province's coffers.

The problem, as Baxter sees it, is that British Columbia's cities have lost their awareness of the province's resource base. "When you drive into town from the airport in Calgary, evidence of where the tax money comes from is all around you. The same can't be said in Vancouver," he said. "We city-dwellers are too far removed from our resource base in British Columbia."

TLA executive director Jim Girvan couldn't agree more. "In a report we put out last September, the one common thread we found was that the people in downtown Vancouver just don't get the forest industry," he said.

Girvan says that this disconnect explains why British Columbia's kids aren't drawn to forestry school in the same numbers as in previous years.

"When health and education budgets get tight, it's because the forest industry's not functioning very well - but that is just lost on people."

Baxter added that the recent flurry of attention to the call for provincial tax breaks for B.C.'s movie industry is a case in point. "People in the Lower Mainland are not stupid. They see the cruise ships. They pick up the paper and they get three pages on troubles in the film industry. They just don't get 20 pages on the forestry industry, which is what they should have to balance (its) economic importance."

Public interest and awareness of the source of economic dollars is essential, say both Baxter and Girvan.

"Metropolitan people in British Columbia can outvote non-metropolitan people. We've got to find a way to get around the rural/urban distinction," said Baxter.

"Political and public awareness of the fundamental role that rural and resource economies play in paying the bills in British Columbia is a necessary precondition to implementing policies and partnerships that will ensure the viability of the industries and communities that pull the provincial economy."

Girvan noted the TLA is taking new steps to increase public awareness of the importance of the forestry industry to the province. "If you ask a kid today from Surrey or Langley where their milk comes from, they're going to tell you it's from a carton in Safeway. And they'll say lumber comes from a Home Depot," said Girvan, adding the TLA aims to change those perceptions.

The TLA intends to start bridging the gap between rural and urban communities by introducing a program called Provider Pals. "It's aimed at middle-school kids and is set up to bring loggers and fishermen into their classroom to show the kids these real people and tell them what they do," Girvan said.

Girvan has been in touch with the Ministry of Education and said the program could be ready to roll out into city schools next September.

The TLA is also taking steps to teach the teachers, too. "We have a director whose kids go to school in North Vancouver," said Girvan. "Last year he went to a parent-teacher interview and offered to come to the school to talk about the forestry industry, to tell the kids what he does as a log buyer and trader. The teacher told him that they didn't need that kind of education at school."

When you've got a province where 80 per cent of the people live west of Hope or east of the Malahat, "they don't want to think about it - they just expect these social services," Girvan added.

"The forest industry is responsible for one job in four in B.C., and when the forest industry does well, the entire province does well."

Web watch: www.truckloggers.com

www.urbanfutures.com (Karen Dyer can be reached at karen@businessedge.ca)