China Trip Cost 24 Grand
Thursday, November 29, 2012 @ 4:00 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The bill is in for the Prince George delegation’s visit to China.
In a report that will be presented to City Council on Monday, Mayor Shari Green says the bill for the excursion is as follows:
Return airfare from Prince George to Jiangmen $ 11,452.09
Hotel, ground transportation and admission fees $ 7,596.56
Meals $ 743.72
Gifts $ 1,446.00
Miscellaneous $ 1,403.00
Translation services $ 1,440.00
Total $ 24,081.37
While the report indicates the delegation was made up of the Mayor, Councillors Hall and Wilbur and IPG’s Heather Oland, the report doesn’t indicate if the expenses include those of Ms. Oland, although it says “Ms. Oland’s expenses will be paid by Initiatives Prince George
and the translator fees are covered by Western Economic Diversification funds.”
So, if the translator fees are removed, that leaves the total bill at $ 22,641.37. We know there was $12 grand left over from the last trip to China, and that the Provincial Government chipped in $10,000.
The Mayor’s report says the delegation came home with a memorandum of understanding between the City of Jiangmen and the City of Prince George on:
“Further Strengthening Friendly Cooperation”
The City of Jiangmen and the City of Prince George have signed a letter of intent to establish a twinning relationship for the purpose of further enhancing and developing friendship and cooperation between the two cities and promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the people of Jiangmen and Prince George.
The two sides agree to make concerted efforts, on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, to promote people-to-people friendly contacts and economic and trade interflow between the two cities, and actively carry out exchanges and cooperation in the fields of transportation and logistics, cultural exchange, tourism, and post secondary education.”
The Mayor says the delegation held several meetings including sessions with a high school, university and with a medical school. Alll three are said to have expressed interest in sending students to Prince George, and in exchanging teachers. There was no one from UNBC, School District 57 or the College of New Caledonia on this trip.
There was also a visit to a paper manufacturing facility where there was discussion about Prince George’s pulp manufacturing. Canfor did not have a representative on this delegation, so IPG’s Heather Oland is now in charge of following up on this connection.
A delegation from Jiangmen was invited to return to Prince George in 2013 at which time it is hoped an official twinning agreement will be signed.
Comments
Maybe we can get another chop stick factory.
Gifts?
Hopefully possible business investors don’t ever talk to the koreans that built the chopstick factory in pg. they were not educated on the costs associated with building in pg. the development fees, city curbs, street and plumbing etc. ate all their budget before they purchased operating equipment. And they were mistreated by some local dirt contractors as well. I felt sorry for them, although the big picture showed that they were loaded, still no excuse to mistreat people who were trying to create jobs
I was expecting a higher cost. It’s kind of funny Brian Skakun wasn’t taken on the trip, after all he does have extensive experience on our council and could have added important perspectives into the discussions.
morning all.
still not sure what the heck we got for $24,000.00 +, years from now we will look back at this and still wonder. gifts and miscellaneous to the tune of $2,800.00??
they also must have taken in some shows as there was admission fees of. sure looks like a bit of a vacation to me. I guess they deserved one after doing such a great job of looking after our city issuses such as smooth cleared streets, reduced organized crime that would intice people to come stay here.
just another mornin thought, have a great day everyone
Hope the weather as nice,what the hell ws IPG doing on this trip????? time to dump this lot on their ass IPG one Million hello
…could have used that $ to fix a lot of potholes this spring!
Admission fees …. must have gone to some expensive cabarets ….. called slipping the doorman a $50 to get in instead of standing in line and another $50 inside for a good table.
;-)
OK, everyone cancel Christmas dinners, get togethers and other friendship activities…the Grinches are out of the bag….
IMO
Merry Christmas everyone,
The major problem with the chopsticlk factory here was that they did not know how the process works. The money was given to easily in my opinion
They soaked the chopstick length wood, then peeled it to chopstick thickness, then cut the strip into chopstick thickness, then put it into a large tumbler to dry.
Oddly enough, the chopsticks were all curved …. LOL.
They had no clue of the properties of wood, neither did the mechnical contractors. They had no process engineers on staff or as consultants.
I was asked to go into the facilty to see what was going wrong. It was rather obvious.
Two years and $25,000 dollars later and we now have exactly the same as what we had in October of 2010 blog/view/17967/3…-+in+costa+rica/city+to+move+forward+towards+twinning+with+jiangmen?id=&st=3600 The memory at city hall appears to be pretty short.
There is minimal return on investment for this junket but our current mayor and council are somehow blinded from looking at this from an objective business perspective. It is rather ironic given their loud cries to cut back in order to reduce taxes. LOL
It appears that what they actually meant was cut everywhere, well except on their own salaries (which they actually hiked up), travel expenses (which remain untouched), and political junkets to far away lands that cost thousands of our hard earned tax dollars with very little in return.
The provincial government chipped in $10,000….is this why no labour supported councillors ever junket to China?
Now it is understandable why the B.C. Liberals are in DEBT! ;] Paid holidays for Mayor’s in B.C. or at least most of them. Chuck this lot as they have no conscience.
You said it all in your last paragraph Psst!
This trip was nothing more than a vacation for those who went, paid for by those who stayed at home. There is absolutely no chance that anything will come of it, because.
THOSE WHO WENT HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO REPRESENT ANYONE. ESPECIALLY ANYONE IN THE BUSINESS WORLD.
Canada and BC have been exporting lumber, pulp and paper all over the world for over 100 years. We certainly do not need Heather Oland to follow up with Canfor, just because they had a discussion with a paper mill. There are thousands of paper mills in China. Canfor has been exporting pulp and paper to China for over 20 years. They have a sales office in Bejing.
Paper Excellance in MacKenzie is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asia Pulp and Paper, and most (if not all) of its pulp productions goes to China. Most pulp is sold on contract over a period of years, and all pulp mills in this area are operating at capacity. Not sure where Oland thinks she can find more capacity.
Its time the Mayor, Councillors, and members of these other entities like IPG, NDIT, the Airport Authority, Tourism PG, etc; quit trying to sell us a pig in a poke.
These people are totally out of thier league on the world stage, they have no status and no authority. They are bit players in a huge production.
In fact I suspect that these trips make us all look like fools to the Chinese. They must think that we have nothing but money to waste.
Time to stop the BS,. and get down to work to solve our local problems. Thats what Municipal Governments are for. Leave the big ticket items to the other level of Governments and business who are capable of handling them
On another City note, there is a link to a CBC news piece on opinion250’s website that reports that a woman from Prince George, who was convicted of animal cruelty, is being released. I would like the City of Prince George to get behind not letting her back into our community.
Of course, this would be after further research into her but according to the CBC article she is scary stuff.
Gus, i was talking about how underfunded they were on the capital costs to build the facility, long before it became operational. The city tells developers after they get deeply committed how they are required to upgrade or change earthwork, sewer, water, curbs, landscaping in a railyard etc. not to mention a huge development fee. This still goes on , the keg project went thru some struggles and delayed during construction for the entire summer
Just for your info,there was a second chopstick factory opened in the BCR indutrial site called Daesung.They did soak the wood a fair amount and then dropped the sticks into several large boiler rooms to be dried.The reason they closed is because the employees got tired of being mistreated and tried to bring in the IWA union.The people running the show evenually took off with a bunch of government money and I believe one of them was eventually charged.
“Now it is understandable why the B.C. Liberals are in DEBT! ;] Paid holidays for Mayor’s in B.C. or at least most of them. Chuck this lot as they have no conscience”
Paul – I am not defending this trip at all but please tell me what it has to do with provincial debt?
So Heather’s cost is to be paid by IPG and the Provincial government kicked in 10,000 and the City the rest. The one common thread is that the money from every one of these groups is taxpayers money. Yours and mine. It matters not which pocket it comes out of.
oh sorry, missed the part where the province kicked in – lol. nevermind…
In some circles they call it political patronage…
Since when do “sides” negotiate twin city agreements? Should we not all be on the same “team” if we are developing a cooperative twinning agreement?
A few weeks back the feds gave IPiG some money for foreign hand-shaking. Thats probably about the time she said “Shari, I can come to China with you”.
And lets try this anyway…..
Why the heck is the NDI Trust lending money to Commonwealth so they can purchase land in the first place ?
Around and around the connections go…..things are starting to smell funny.
Funny funny funny!!! Heather O just named in the 6 property foreclosure By NDI. Along with Danny Mclearen. Palopu… your last post is the best post I have ever seen on this site.
I wonder how much of the NDI Trust money made it to the Green campaign through Commonwealth and if this is a Ford moment for our mayor?
Had our councilors and mayor been watching the news they would see that China just basically challenged the US to war. Hard to have a twin city with a nation that is declaring war on your allies?
China today announced they will arrest and repo any foreign vessels they find in the area they claim as the South China Sea. Claiming that their new navel armada is now on patrol. Problem is the area they claim includes hundreds of miles out and surrounding Taiwan, almost up to the shore line of Vietnam, and within 20 miles of the Philippine capital of Manila. Taiwan and the Philippines have mutual defense treaties with the Americans…. China feels they have this right because they put the ‘South China Seas’ (AKA the Philippine Seas) on the new Chinese passports, and since these new passports were stamped by other nations immigration officials it is akin to recognition of the Chinese sea grab… taken right from the international law book of Israel.
So China has said to hell with international law and challenges the Americans to do something about it. Prince George however announces a new twin city arrangement to ‘Further Strengthen Friendly Cooperation’ and our own dear leader (Harper) in Canada looks to subsidize the Chinese with cheep oil.
The real question is,was this a secret mission to find a Chinese replacement for the City Manager position?
Seeing that
1. we do not have sufficient qualified workers here, and
2. that providing Chinese with work permits is acceptable practice, and
3. that Chinese cities are growing at phenomenal rates providing lots of practical experience to hone one’s city building skills,
it would make emminent sense to look there for an infusion of some new ideas.
One of my favorite things to do when shopping downtown was to check out our two Antique stores on George St. Its looks like we have lost both of them. The sad thing is lots of people have consignment items in both stores, I am one of them and as one lady put it “I’m not angry, but please just let us know when to come down to the store , let us in,and give us our stuff back”. IF we are continued to be ignored it seems the police should be looking into this.
Sorry wrong site, I thought I was on Fri Free for all.
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