Make room for the people who keep our islands working. When a service has to come from elsewhere, residents can pay for travel, ferries and overnight stays as well as the work itself.
One concrete example: Compass Electric’s published maintenance terms list $390 for routine annual maintenance of an air-cooled standby generator up to 26 kW, plus $380 when it attends just one island property. The total is $770 before GST and additional work. The offer names Salt Spring, Pender, Galiano, Saturna and Mayne. Shared appointments may split travel. These undated terms were observed on 1 November 2026; this is a supplier offer, not a market average or paid invoice.
Our new wage and work-cost comparison covers all 516 occupation groups in Job Bank’s 19 November 2025 snapshot. Search common trades or the whole catalogue, switch between median and mean pay, and compare Canada, BC, Lower Mainland–Southwest and Vancouver Island and Coast. Each estimate retains its period, units and source. Those regions are broader than Vancouver city and Vancouver Island alone, and the dataset has no separate occupation-pay series for individual Gulf Islands.
Regional wage differences run in both directions. The documented service charges show the cost of access directly. The comparison brings together supplier prices, a public Salt Spring quotation and historical project estimates, with the specific conditions beside every record. All 13 town sites have their own island view, and Abolish carries the whole collection. Download the data and follow the primary sources.
We advocate homes working households can afford, room for local businesses and a stronger year-round workforce.