Enough with the rain, time for summer please :)

MAN, IS IT EVER COLD HERE……I just touched down from a week in Las Vegas.
47c – 50c, totally wonderful…glad I left my flannel jammies nearby, but I refuse to turn the furnace on.

OMG, forgot to share this with you all….Not 1 pothole, the roads were great to drive on

Not 1 pothole, the roads were great to drive on ……

So I thought the saying is that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. :-)

We need more casinos:)

Last business day for the city to post “Provide Input on Service Profiles (to be posted on this webpage)” for the core review if it is to happen in June 2012 as promised.

On a side note, there is at least one city park west of town that has yet to be mowed this year…I wish I knew when the next satellite photo was due so I could mow a figure of sorts;)

Enough with the rain, time for summer please :)

47c . Us northerners would melt into our mukluks.

Enough with the rain, time for summer please :)

Forget it. That’s why we pay carbon tax, it seems to be working. Happy Canada Day here’s some more tax for you. Everyone say “Thanks Liberals”

Hottest recorded temp. in Canada was 45c in 1937. Some serious global warming back in the 1930’s.

Does anyone know what the long term plans are now for the properties the city was buying along river road before the public was aware of the river road dyke plan. I am assuming we’ve bought the Global Winton building and that new white house on river road and possibly others. Does the city have a plan for park or other now that the taxpayers own this area? Where did the money come for the original purchases? Road money? Just wondering as we walk there a lot, and there is so little known it seems about the city and what is happening.

PG is an anomaly when it comes to global warming. If only the Lib’s would lower the carbon tax a few pennies for the people in PG maybe the sun would shine and the temperature rise to the mid twenties. Household furnaces now operate September thru May.
Stolz has been rather quiet about dikes lately. I would have thought with the threat of flooding he would have been front and center spouting his propaganda or is he just pouting about not being able to spend taxpayer money on the River road dike.

flowermum wrote: “there is so little known it seems about the city and what is happening”.

Bang on!!!!! I do not think that it seems that way. That is, in fact, the way it is.

Canada day just around the corner so be thankful that all we have to bitch about is a few frivolous things. What a great place to live!

Now fix the roads and get your house in order!

Does anyone know what that aggravating sound emanating from the industrial site across from Cottonwood Island is? I mean where the mills and the gas plant are. This seemed to begin in late January or early February and when apparent is like a giant droning sound. Others who are aware of it liken it to a vacuum sound or the sound of ones carpets being cleaned. Whatever it is, it has extraordinary carrying and penetrating power and has the characteristics of a vibration—like a tuning fork. It can be heard throughout the bowl once one is aware of its frquency. It is not on continuously and there are times when it is not on for a week or more. It can also be on 24/7. Yet there is also no obvious pattern to when it is on, either by date or time. Any ideas?

I don’t believe it. I experienced 45c in Pentiction one summer. I think it was the summer of 90 or 91 when they had those huge forest fires in the area.

They let off steam at the Co-gen from time to time and its very loud and penetrating. Almost deafening if one is one site.

IMO the new Obamacare ruling by the US Supreme Court is interesting. Mandating everyone must buy health insurance?

US Supreme Court calls this a tax, but its a tax paid to private financial institutions that privately insure? Since when do private institutions get to tax… same court that says they can contribute unlimited funds to politics whether owned by foreign or domestic shareholders.

If its a tax than will Americans now have to reorganize as a public health care system administered by government? Or do private corporations now have rights to mandate taxes?

Essentially Obama fronted a flat tax for health care that is a head tax and not based on profits or progressive income levels. At least in Canada our taxes for health care for the most part involve an income tax that reflects ones income level. So, strange that a man who claims to represent the lower income will force the unemployed to pay up a flat head tax from money they don’t have to meet the mandate for a sector that makes up a third of the economy. A foot in the door for flat income taxes one must wonder? The poor pay more that they don’t have and the rich pay less?

It reminds me of the HST. A flat tax on revenue, rather than a progressive tax on profits. A tax that was designed to strangle free enterprise by limiting the opportunity for new entrants to the market by taxing a startup a flat tax on revenue before it ever earns its first dime of profits. Entrepreneur takes all the risks, pays all the taxes, and if the flat taxes on revenue eat up the value margin they go broke for their troubles.

Seems they are both policies that create unemployment by downloading costs on the small business entrepreneurs with no respect for the viability of small business.

Any news on who took out the power pole (and power) on North Nechako road around midnight on Wednesday night?

Have an enjoyable and safe long weekend everyone.

“Since when do private institutions get to tax”

Since the formation of Business Improvement Areas?

Dragon poster posted the following link on another thread.

https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/index.do

I must say I find this link very disturbing. Sure its great to be able to look up the criminal record of a misfit and in 5-minutes have a persons entire life’s interaction with the court system… for $6 have all the juicy details.

But should this kind of data be available in such an accessible way when it involves every small claims dispute, residential tenancy dispute, family legal dispute, car accident related legal matters, and financial bankruptcies or related tax disputes… on the internet 24/7 for matters decades into the past? With very personal information accessible for only $6 and a few clicks on the internet.

Shouldn’t one be required to go to a physical office if they want to request these kinds of court documents?

What is to prevent a potential employer or lender from using that web site to make quick judgements on ones character. A bankruptcy is only available 7 years on ones credit report, but its available forever on this BC government web site… so one applies for a job in finance or anything related and its a black list for life. A person wants a job as a teacher and their custody dispute becomes a 30-second look up factor… a lady applies for a driving job and an accident from 30-years ago costs them the job… blackmail… you name it all sorts of abuse for those knaveing enough to use this tool.

So I was left wondering what is the difference between a government web site that publishes 24/7 personal documents that the general public has no need to see, and yet on the other hand we have what happened to Skakun here in town for releasing a similar type of document?

Are there two standards for privacy, and if so who determines what is searchable and who is not?

Good point Gus… its the slippery slope IMO.

Have a great Canada Day long weekend everyone :)

I think the loud droning sound coming from the pulp mills are the vacuum trucks sucking up all the taxpayers money the gov. threw at them.

Here is an interesting read about mileage and how it relates to car safety

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Murdock-EPACAFEstandardskill.pdf

Carbon tax going up!

DF – I dont know if its related, but I live up the Hart and have had a drone that seems to resonate through the house for the last couple of months. If you go outside you really have to struggle to pick up on it but at 3am it is very annoying. It stopped for a few days last week and then started again. I have no idea what it is. Ive driven around the neighborhood and cant seem to get any closer to it so maybe it is that far away…

Flowermum. I beleive that the City purchased the property you mentioned along with the property that all the truck trailers are located on.

Who knows what the City’s plans are for this property. I suspect that they have not really given up on the idea of a dike, even though during this last flood, the area that they wanted to put in the sheet piling, (Brink Forest to the boat launch) remained dry, without any seepage on the South side of River Road.

My understanding is that during negotiations for property the City can keep information confidential, however after the property has been sold it becomes public knowledge. If this is so then you should be able to find out from the City just how much property they purchased, and what they plan to do with it.

On the other hand, who knows????

I would just like to thanks 250 for pulling the comments on the tragic accident yesterday morning. Some harsh words really hurt family and friends that are grieving. Thank you.

Have a great long weekend everyone.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY…on the U.S.Supreme Court ruling re healthcare:
“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN G. ROBERTS JR.

There are a lot of negatives to Obamacare. The system will be much inferior to ours, or to the systems of countries such as Israel and Sweden. The problem is that in the US there is such strong political opposition to any comprehensive health care system that they ended up with this unfortunate kludge as a compromise.

Great quotation! Supreme courts ought to protect people from politicians who predictably don’t keep the promises they made to get elected in the first place! A great law would be to jail them for a year for every blatantly broken promise, two years for doing exactly the opposite from what they promised to do when they misled people in order to get the votes!

Pulp mills pulp mills pulp mills. Everyone just blames everything on the pulp mills. The droning noise is coming from the husky plant. It sure sounds like huge vacuum trucks running but I am not positive. They are under a constant upgrade situation right now so it must have to do with that.

When it all boils down who cares about obamacare.They knock our system enough.

interceptor—that is exactly that sound. When I first heard it in early February it was inside our house, close to the wall facing the industrial area. I thought that this new sound was coming from our house (boiler/water tank/etc.) and that there was something wrong but everything checked out OK and when I opened the front door I could hear that it came from the area in question but that it wasn’t really much louder than it had been indoors. This was very unusual as our house is extremely solid and blocks most outside noises. I know that this sound can carry to the Hart. Someone in Pineview, east of the airport has noticed/complained about it, someone on Hofferkamp Road has said that it is a new and puzzling sound and once, when I went up to the university it was louder there than it had been downtown. This carrying power is very strange. If the sound is on and one is beside the river at the entrance to Fort George Park it is partly drowned out by the traffic on the bridge. However, if one walks down to the slough the traffic noise will steadily dissipate and disappear whereas this other sound will drone on at seemingly the same decibel level, as loud as it was much closer to it, until it becomes THE SOUND—the only industrial/vehicle noise that one can hear.

Have a fun and hopefully accident free weekend everyone!

After the HST is gone will there be still be jobs created?

Harbinger: “After the HST is gone will there be still be jobs created?”

Yup, and all the thousands of restaurants that closed down due to the HST can re-open.

If the city is letting off steam there are two possible reasons.. a plant upset or they are producing more steam than being used.. and if that is the issue then they are not running their plant correctly.

As for the noise..it is not coming from husky or the pulpmills on pulpmill road.. I work near there and there has be no change to any noise pollution in the area.

But the main stink is still coming from Husky.. not the mills…they do contribute to the air pollution but Husky is by far the worst culprit

The area that the truck trailers are part was sold by the City a few years ago. It was a strange sale as at the same time the City was telling companies (Lakeland, Klein & Sons, Cougar Crain, etc.) that their properties were to become park land. Yet where the trailers are parked the City had a “for sale” sign. I wonder how much did it cost to buy back the land after only a few years.

re: the noise & vibration I was blaming CN. The noise and vibration is so bad on some nights I do not get a good night sleep. I also worry about my plumbing as sometimes I feel like my house is vibrating apart. So now I must add what Husky is doing to the vibration we get from the idling engines; the nights Via Rail is in are the worse especially Wed nights.

What is the City view as they do have by-laws for noise, etc., oh sorry for being so stupid, it is industry and they can do as they like.

Glad to see Gus is back and feeling better. Must be because of that excellent care that he got at our hospital.

“After the HST is gone will there be still be jobs created?”

Yes, for employment counselling for those who will be laid off as a result of businesses having to pay taxes and thus not being competitive with the Chinese manufacturers of Canadian flags, etc. for Canada Day and other such dollar store items.

I mean, if it works in one direction, why would it not work in the other direction, eh?

Ever wonder why Alberta has no PST? They’re fat oil cats! They trump us all.

Haven’t heard much about the new downtown condo/hotel development. Surely there must be all kinds of signed deals and they’re just a moment away from starting to dig, right?

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/23985/1/new+$40+million+hotel+condo+complex+officially+unveiled

Speaking of unfinished business, I remember a while back (Sept. of last year) reading that O250 was going to release some documents regarding the operation of the DBIA. Since then, nothing… that I could find.

What happened with this one?

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/21562/7/opinion250+to+begin+to+release+dbia+documents+and+other+information?id=38&st=120

In other news, the Harper (TM) Government is now FRIENDS OF THE ARTS because it makes good economic sense.

“We punch so far above our weight when it comes to the arts, culture and creativity… And arts and culture is so important to Canada no only because of all the great success stories… but also because it’s critical to Canada’s economy.

“The question about whether or not Stephen Harper or our government supports the arts – that debate is over. We do.

“That’s an investment. Is that a loss? Well, if you have a very dumb, point-for-point analysis… then you might say so. But that doesn’t take into consideration all the economic considerations that come from it,” Mr. Moore said. “All these things spur other things.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bieber-tiff-and-a-halifax-museum-why-tories-are-now-friends-of-the-arts/article4375725/

The best place to see the City owned property locations is to go to PGMap, which is accessible from the City web site and make sure the “city owned parcels” layer is turned on.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY…on the U.S.Supreme Court ruling re healthcare:
“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN G. ROBERTS JR.

In Alberta, at least Calgary, you have to pay for your water usage. There are other fees and charges people pay in Alberta that we don’t pay in BC.

Though I am one step closer in moving there.

Once the HST is gone we will be very very busy trying to compete with Ontario who still have the HST. If we can beleive the supporters of the HST we are in for a hard time. All new industry in BC will relocate to Ontario.

The elimination of the HST will once again show, that this whole HST fiasco was nothing more than a tax transfer from business to consumers, and a tax grab by a failed Liberal Government.

The elimination of this tax will not effect business in BC by one iota.

For once we were able to stop (slow down) the greedy tax grabbing, Government, and their buddies, big business.

Have a nice day.

“For once we were able to stop (slow down) the greedy tax grabbing, Government, and their buddies, big business.”

Do you really think we stopped(Slow Down) anything! I don’t.

“MAN, IS IT EVER COLD HERE……I just touched down from a week in Las Vegas. 47c – 50c, totally wonderful…glad I left my flannel jammies nearby, but I refuse to turn the furnace on”

47-50 is “totally wonderful”? You either have the temps confused with what they really were (low 40’s based on what I Googled for last week), or you are reptilian, LOL :)

That said, I’d take Vegas 40’s and their single digit humidity over hot days out here when the humidity picks up. That humidity combined with the heat is a killer.

“Once the HST is gone we will be very very busy trying to compete with Ontario who still have the HST. If we can beleive the supporters of the HST we are in for a hard time. All new industry in BC will relocate to Ontario”

Funny. All the crazy right wing radio hosts and call in shows out here are predicting that every corporation in Ontario will flee for BC because of the repressive income taxes here.

I wonder who is right, the right wing nuts here or the right wing lunatics in BC? Something has to give. Maybe they’ll all split the difference and set up shop in left wing Saskatchewan. Wouldn’t that be something, LOL :)

NMG: “Funny. All the crazy right wing radio hosts and call in shows out here are predicting that every corporation in Ontario will flee for BC because of the repressive income taxes here.”

I thought everyone was moving to Alberta?

Well they say that, but then they realize what working in the patch is going to be like, LOL :)

Yeah, all that money does push you into a higher tax bracket.

There are many people who say stuff like “you couldn’t pay me enough to work in the patch” and given the labour shortages they are experiencing right now, I’d say that statement is pretty accurate ;)

Labour shortages are everywhere, not just in ‘the patch’. It’s just hard to find good skilled people.

I agree and it’s going to get even harder in the coming decades. Which begs the question, would you rather work in an isolated environment far away from your family for lengthy periods of time, or in a place when you can sleep in your own bed every night and watch your kids play their soccer game in the evening?

I can see the head offices in Calgary doing well, but the jobs “in the field” so to speak, are a tougher sell for the generations that are up and coming.

Big money can be had anywhere when you have desired skills, but work life balance is more difficult to find.

Back a couple of years ago the CBC did a piece on a few Newfie families that moved out to Fort CrackMurray. The families went from tight-knit east coast families to destruction. Drugs, booze and other temptations that come with financial gain, ripped these families apart. They found moving out to the boom-town, for them, wasn’t worth it.
Now if your young and gung-ho, get your butt up there.

NMG: “Which begs the question, would you rather work in an isolated environment far away from your family for lengthy periods of time, or in a place when you can sleep in your own bed every night and watch your kids play their soccer game in the evening?”

Uh, if it came down to feeding my family, I would flip burgers or dig ditches. The people who say “You couldn’t pay me enough” are either well off, or lazy, or a bit of both. Of course, there is a quality of life issue that you have to take into consideration. Some people choose the big bucks, but it comes at a cost, like everything else. It’s all about choices.

You make a good point, people these days are seemingly more hesitant to move where the work is. They expect the world to come to them. Moving seems like more of a big deal nowadays than it used to be.

“People these days are seemingly more hesitant to move where the work is”

I would disagree with that. Generally speaking, I think that the people that can’t find work and that are employable, will move to where the work is.

I also think that people these days are more hesitant to give up what they currently have, just so they can make a little more money somewhere else. I doubt that a welder making 100K a year in Hamilton is going to pack up and move his family to Fort Nelson so he can make 130K there, especially if his wife can’t find work.

I think too many people assume that the vacancies in the Oil and Gas sector are because of people sitting around not being willing to work. In fact, I think the vacancies have more to do with the population choosing to remain employed in other sectors or areas across the country. The challenge for Oil and Gas will be to draw these people away from what they currently have and that’s going to be a daunting task IMHO.

Been along time since posting but am a constant reader of o250… but I wanted to direct everyones attention to
Norm Farrell’s
northerninsights.blogspot.ca
Please encourage everyone to read what two men, earning public dollars !
Davd hahn…1.78 million despite leaving his post early..
The new guy ,Mr Corrigan whom we were assured was going to save the tax paying public money
His salary jumped from 564.000$ to ..
(I almost choked).. to $955,615$ is this for real!!! my god that doesn’t include the bonuses and pension top ups for other board members.. 2 people over 2 million in wages and various other goodies the rest of us drool over, is it any wonder bc is broke! our m.l.a.’s should be ashamed that these kinds of contracts carry on .
maybe one of the sitting cabinet members can comment if they read this blog….Mr Bell.. Ms Bond?? why??
and worse we continue to get blasted with stories about the evil unions and their 2% wage increase.. or for most net zero $$ ,
The non raises in question for clbc folks are a cruel joke for the disabled and their familes for top level execs they will get a 9.66% raise.. if only the rest of the frontline public servants could even dream of such raises … did they get that last year as well? this govt. cant be gone soon enough and please… and stop dumping on the poor guy or gal.. serving u at a govt office or mopping a floor at our hospital or running your ambulances or teaching your kids… the list goes on.
Seems the gravey train for those lucky enough to be included in the “familes first” drivel never seems to stop..
hope I’m wrong on this info but knowing the track record of bonuses we have seen given out in the past ..the info is most likely correct.. how very ver sad and troubling.

I’ve worked in the patch in the past. Yea…you couldn’t pay me enough to go back. Some folks believe that its just a matter of picking up and moving out there. Its just not that easy. The price of housing in these places is prohibitively expensive. You need plenty of cash to move to begin with.

If you need a job…well then you need a job. However I certainly would entertain other options much closer to home at less money before I even think about the patch again.

An excellent post thedogs.

And further to BC Ferries, the word I’m hearing is that the two German built ferries aren’t very good both in fuel efficiency and reliability. I don’t know how true that is, but I do know that they don’t carry as many vehicles as the BC built Spirit class ferries.

This morning at several stations in Victoria, gas was 113.9. It went to 110.9 at mid-day and I filled up this evening at 107.9. Not only that but different stations had different prices.

There is a building boom going on in Courtney BC. Seems that people from Ft McMurray are building new homes and living there. The Dad works in the Fort and then flys to Courtney (Comox) on the week-ends, or every other week.

This is a sweet heart deal all around. 1. High paying job in the Fort. 2. Fancy house in the suburbs of Courtney 3. Life in a quiet neibourhood, with schools, shopping etc; close at hand. ie; Parksville, or Nanaimo. 4. No winters to worry about, a little snow, but not much, and the possibility of golfing, fishing, or hiking year round. 5. Week-ends at home.

How is this possible. Well for one thing you can get a direct flight from Edmonton or Calgary to Comox.

What does Prince George have to offer?? Not much. No direct flights to Edmonton, Calgary,. or Victoria. In fact in the not too distant future West Jet will discontinue jet service to Prince George from Vancouver, and we will be serviced by Dash 8’s (stretched) 70 Seaters.

House prices in Courtney are probably comparable to Prince George, but that is the only thing we have in common.

Also heard a rumour that the direct flights from Pr George to Puerto Vallarta will start in Grande Prairie next year. So it will be Grande Prairie to Prince George, to Mexico. Then Mexico to Prince George to Grande Prairie. Seems not enough people in Prince George are using this service.

How is the pot hole situation in Grande Prairie? Like ours?

The full quote Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. is:

“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices”

I think that fuller statement provides some important context that is only implied in the last sentence.

If we then apply that entire statement to, say, the local Civic election when certain promises were made by some of those who were elected, but they did not act on promises intially when it came to fixing roads and instead reduced the amount of dollars that were to be provided by the previous Council, what process do we have ion place in this province and country to remove those elected officials who failed to keep their promise.

Therein lies the rub. It has to work both ways. I do not believe it works both ways in the USA other than in 2 or 4 year increments and it certainly does not work any better in Canada. And it especially does not work well in places like PG where Council seems to shy away from forming wards or civic parties. That way everyone is on their own and really not accountable to anyone but themselves and a group of like-minded people they listen to.

The system, in my view, needs some serious improvement to gain more accountability for the citizens of this and other communities which may face the same problem.

http://www.flyfortmac.ca/AirportAuthority/Expansion.aspx

“Well for one thing you can get a direct flight from Edmonton or Calgary to Comox.”

Then you have to fly to Fort McMurray from there. If there were enough people doing that, then one or more of the companies would have a private shuttle service between Fort McMurray and Comox. In fact, for all I know, one may exist, especially with a smaller plane.

From the above link it looks like Fort McMurray has an annual passenger load in the 700,000 range which is almost twice as much as PG and just under Kelowna’s.

The airport site shows a large new terminal building. No idea when it will go ahead. But hey, petro dollars … one can do a lot with those ……

As far as the notion of moving to jobs ….. unless you do not have a family life or you do and you want to get as far away from them as possible, I suggest you do not move if you can avoid it.

There is the other reason for people moving to larger communities. The smaller the community the fewer the job opportunities.

With the increasing amount of turnover in companies replacing other companies due to inability to access project after project and resulting inability to maintain a steady workforce and sufficient opportunities for advancements, larger communities provide greater attractions.

On top of that, larger communities can cater to the special social lifestyle needs of a diverse population.

Many of us won’t be around 30 to 50 years from now when the reason for Fort McMurray’s existence will no longer be there, the oil money in Alberta will generally have dried up in a similar fashion as Texas and Oklahoma and people will no longer be able to gain the primary thing that the oil fields provided ….. jobs.

Then what? Major infrastructure built for just another one industry town, only on large scale than Houston, Mackenzie, Tumbler Ridge, Kitimat, Barkerville, etc.

Been there done that.

All one horse towns to serve the Torontos, Vancouvers, New Yorks, Parises, etc. of the world …. the cities which will outlast all the hinterland wannabees.

Palupo – did someone in the airport authority steal your wife? Let it go man. You’re getting down to the “I heard a rumour” level to bash our airport. So what if the service comes from GP to fill a plane?

I just noticed that the AIF from Fort McMurray is $30/departing passenger. PG airport it is $20/passenger ……

20 bucks is pretty cheap to depart from here. I think I’ll leave.