So is IPiG important to anyone outside of it’s wall’s or is it a million dollar welcome wagon ?

IPG does important work leveraging the strategic assessment of marketing opportunity objectives. They also capitalize on forward-looking investment-ready programming attributes.
And don’t forget their prior success in securing regionally inclusive funding scenarios in a retractive capital market context.
Just read their pom-pom pounding annual reports.

What do those five Initiatives mean? And I guess enbidge is vvered by one of them.

Our population is decliningm and we have a bright future?
Cheers

Why has there budget increased?

By the sounds of this, they were the ones that brought Mt. Milligan to our neighbourhood. What a laugh. No, more like a joke.

Core review better involve measuring the efficacy of this $1m annual bill.

Really, they field a lot of calls about business investment in Prince George, seriously? Everything you need to know can be found on the internet with very little in the way of effort. Tax rates, property values, business licensing, market research, market saturation for goods and services, population statistics and demographics and on and on it goes. Should be able to find 95% of what you need on the City of Prince George’s website.

I’ve always thought IPG was a joke, but I bet you the new clan at City Hall won’t touch it and we’ll continue to bleed for these patronage appointments and fancy business lunches. BS

C’mon, everyone, give these people a break. After all, they’re going to work on downtown development! They’re going to develop strategic partnerships!

I get awfully tired of so many do-nothing enterprises dipping into my tax dollars. DBIA, IPG, I haven’t seen any concrete value that they’ve provided. IPG can claim credit for our airport runway expansion, but I don’t buy it, and I don’t think city hall should either.

I’ve seen quite a few good things come out of IPG first hand.

One good example is Boundary Road. People might argue as to whether Boundary Road was needed, but the City was going to ahead with this–they wanted this road as part of the dangerous goods route. It’s costing $28 million.

IPG was responsible for getting 2/3 of the cost looked after by groups and individuals other than the City.

Boundary Road alone payed for IPG’s existance for about 20 years or so.

Icicle,

How do you figure that IPG can take credit for that road project? Have you ever taken a look at how much grant money the city pulls in every year? Seems to me that the project managers at the city are fully capable of accessing grant resources on their own and probably did on this project as well. The grant money is due to the federal and provincial stimulus programs and don’t forget who pays for those dollars in the end too. It’s not free money sweetheart. Lets also not forget that this is 7 new kilometers of road, curb, gutter, water and sewer that will be added to the taxpayer load. We can’t take care of the roads we got, but you’re happy they’re building a new one? Give your head a shake. Don’t forget the couple million dollars in debt associated with this project too.

Look, IPG costs a couple million a year to run and the taxpayers are on the hook for most of it. They have 7 employees. If you really think they provide a valuable service, pick a couple and draw them under the cities envelope. House them at city hall and get rid of the costs associated with the building. Save yourself a million and a half dollars a year and call it a day.

But can it save the PG Cougars?

IPiG responsible for Boundary Rd……WTF ? The only thing I can see IPiG is responsible for is a huge lunch bill !

Yep, the members of IPG sure found a great cash cow (city of PG).
Next thing we know we will be getting a monorail built to run from UNBC main campus to the wood innovation campus, all because IPG says its a good idea. lol

You dont need Boundry Road for a Dangerous Goods route. Trucks could use the Old Cariboo Highway to go from 16 East to 97 South, or 97 North to 16 West. In addition they use 1st Avenue to go to 97 North.,
In addition Victoria St., and the Bypass are designated as Dangerous Goods routes by the Provincial Government. In fact all Provincial Government highways are classified as Dangerous Goods Routes. The City and IPG use the Dangerous Good card as a **red herring** to cloud the issues.

The people who are responsible for Boundry Road, are those people who will profit from it. ie; Those that own the property that will front the road from Highway 16 to Highway 97. The contractors who made a bundle constructing the road, and the City, who once again borrowed a whack of money for a less than desirable project, that gives them a few more years of job security, and (they hope) a few more business’s to pay taxes.

Will the average taxpayer get anything out of the Boundry Road fiasco. Not bloody likely.

IPG is a huge drain on tax dollars. Even if they werent, they serve no useful purpose and should be shut down.

All the statistics on their web site have been mined from other web sites, such as the BC Government site, Fed Gov Site (Statistics Cda) UNBC site, City Site, etc; I am not really sure what the hell they do all day.

With respect to Boundary road, IPG raised funds from many groups, but one of the largest independant donors was Henry Rempel.

Henry Rempel wasn’t grant money. This was a carefully cultivated relationship that IPG worked with for over 2 years. They worked with him on a weekly basis to make this happen.

The City on the otherhand did not have any relationship with Mr. Rempel–Mr. Rempel was spitting mad at the City and I think for a good reason.

It’s my opinion that there was no chance of the City getting one nickel from Henry without IPG’s involvment.

I also think that the Terasen call centre was IPG’s doing too. They got wind that Terasen was thinking of setting up two call centres in the Province and IPG wouldn’t let it drop until we got one in Prince George. Terasen wasn’t thinking of Prince George initially.

This is the fourth call centre IPG has brought to Prince George (if you don’t include Telus) and this last one means good paying jobs.

Tim McEwan and his crew don’t go running around putting their name in lights. Most of the time they have to keep a low profile because most of the groups they work with want a low profile too.

Some of us would feel better if IPG was running around telling everyone about every deal they put together for our benefit. The problem is that doing that would severely curtain their effectiveness.

IPG doesnt do anything that staff at the City couldnt do. In fact, when it comes right down to it, IPG is paid by the City, and therefore are in effect City employees. Seems like IPG likes to take credit for every business that comes to town, however it takes no responsibility for any business that shuts down or leaves.

Boundry Road is a long way from being a project that will show any benefit for the City. In fact I suggest that the best it will do is entice people to relocate from other industrial parks to the light industrial park on boundry. In other words **churning** with no actual overall benefits.

I don’t know what you are smoking, Irri. NDI Trust’s budget is an order of magnitude larger than IPG’s and it’s mandate is different.

IPG works to development long term economic growth and diversification without giving or loaning money.

NDI Trust works to develop businesses by giving or loaning money.

For example, IPG did not fund Commonwealth, but NDI Trust has and continues to finance Commonwealth.