NDP Considering Rustad Trades Training Proposal
Thursday, April 4, 2013 @ 4:18 AM
Conceptual drawing of trades training centre on Rustad sawmill site – image 250News archive
Prince George, B.C. – There is a glimmer of hope for those who propose to turn the old Rustad sawmill site into a trades training centre.
Canfor and BID Group , have put in about $10 million dollars worth of property and work on the site, and need about $10 million more from the Provincial government to make it work.
Although the project was the subject of much discussion over the past year, the project has not yet moved forward.
The proposal, is being considered by the NDP.
Party leader Adrian Dix says he has visited the site a couple of times “ I think it’s an excellent, exciting idea. One of the things we have to do in skills training, especially in forestry, its not just a matter of having institutions that work, it’s a matter of having people to those institutions. You’re creating spaces that means you want to have people to fill them. That means having institutions that can meet the expectations of young people I think it’s an exciting project and its one we’re looking at very seriously. I think it has some strong local support, some strong industry support and what we have to do in skills training is , as closely as we can, align the needs of the economy to the needs of the post secondary system where we can do that. There’s room for imagination as well and we have to have that, but, we have to have post secondary institutions that attract people to them and I see great potential in that proposal.”
The proponents for the project were counting on a $10 million dollar commitment from the Provincial Government, and Dix wouldn’t discount that kind of participation if his team forms the next government “I think that is something we have to seriously consider. I think that kind of investment in skills training in the north is going to see returns. What you’re also seeing in the(proposal) is significant private investment as well that I think we can lever. So I think that is something we’re looking at, we’re right now going through the numbers hard. I know people want to see all that, but I want to make sure we get it right. I see that, and much more, as needed to ensure that as jobs are created in the north, there’s opportunities available to people in the north and this is a key to the economic development of the region.”
The proponents made a presentation to Prince George City Council last year ( March of 2012) and Council has supported the project.
In his blog, written shortly after the presentation to Council, Canfor CEO Don Kayne wrote “Our proposal is intended to add to existing training capacity in the north, not take away from the valuable trades training capacity that already exists in institutions such as the College of New Caledonia, Northwest Community College and Northern Lights College. We hope to work together with these partners to develop a solution for northern employers that builds on existing educational strengths, while extending the options that are available for northern students and employers.”
Comments
That would explain the big donation made to the NDP. What promises have been this time? No need to be short listed this time.
I would be all for it if BID and CANFOR paid for the decontamination of the site first. People have to look at the whole picture here.
OMG that can’t even properly fund CNC now. How many millions per year will it cost to run this facility?
Especially in Forestry? You mean a retraining Center for when another sawmill shuts down? Why BCIT drop the saw filing program?
Sounds like another fast ferry to me!
CNC just opened a new Trades Centre building, but don’t have the teaching resources to offer a second section of power engineering, electrical, or HD mechanics in order to meet demand. If the NDP want to support post-secondary education in the north, put tax dollars into existing educational infrastructure before leaping into bed with BID and Canfor.
And FWIW, I’m with the others who are leery of anything involving Fehr and BID.
TIREDOFTHEBS and 57chevy are exactly right.
Does Dix think he’s so special that Fehr won’t go after him if he doesn’t put out?
Of course Dix could provide “documents” when needed to show he didn’t make any promises to Fehr….lol
nice parking, funded by the students??
The picture looks more like a re-education camp or gulag, the razor wire on the perimeter fencing to be installed in early June.
Ah, as they say: Politics makes strange bedfellows!
TIREDOFTHEBS has it right.
Who is responsible for cleaning up this site. If Rustads were to sell the property they would have to clean it up. I doubt if they would, if they **gifted** it to the BC Government, and it was used for training. (supposedly)
The clean up is the real story, and the training centre is a smoke screen.
I think it would be great to have a facility that partners with BCIT. BCIT has more trades programs that CNC does now. I personally know a lot of people who are apprenticed through their employer and then have to go to Vancouver to complete school. For working guys with a family, they must apply for EI, leave PG (or where ever they live), pay bills here and also live in Vancouver for up to 5 weeks and beyond. It would be great if CNC expanded the trades that they offered or if BCIT had a campus in PG. There are many people in the north that would rather travel to PG for school than Vancouver. Thats just my opinion from seeing it from a students point of view. None of that political or corporate influences considered.
Looks to me like there is more to that story. I hope the media is looking hard to tell the whole story to inform us all.
As a tax payer I donât get it as we already have facilities and institutions in PG that offer or have the foundation to offer whatever employers like CNFOR or others need in todayâs and tomorrowâs workforce. As for BID Construction, I get it. It is a project to build something. That is fine as that is what they do for a living. The way they go about to get that job is not necessarily very âclassyâ though. They lost my respect by what they did.
Jobs are important but they have to be sustainable over long term and if tax dollars are involved I would expect a lot more scrutiny from gov. supporters and the media to keep all involved honest.
What a stupid idea. What about CNC.. its already set up for trades and is having funding problems.
“Why BCIT drop the saw filing program”
1. Saws are filed by machinery these days.
2. For those which are filed by hand, instructors cannot agree on which is the proper way to file. It is like voodoo science. Everyone has their own proven trade secret of how it is done “properly”.
This close to election of course Dix will “consider” anything. This dope is still sitting on the fence and will not state a position on the northern gateway pipeline ffs.
This proposal is not entirely altruistic in its’ offering, in my kind of humble opinion. It is an opportunity for Mr. Fehr and Canfor to profit from tax payer’s dollars, and for Canfor to potentially escape the liability of an environmental cleanup ( $ millions? )
Nothing wrong with the pursuit of profits, and Mr. Fehr employs a lot of people and does support local sub contractors through his various enterprises. To him I think this is just another opportunity, one that I don’t happen to agree is appropriate.
As others have already said, it would indeed be foolish for any government to support this idea when we have under utilized facilities that are suitable already but for a lack of funding, students, and instructors.
metalman.
Give any funding available to CNC and UNBC.
They are both struggling and this is a vote getter…nothing more!
How much money actually makes to actually training someone. All we hear is the building of new facilities, employment agencies popping up, meetings, industry crying the blues but doing nothing except standing around with their hands out. All this soaking up the much hallooed training funds. How much actually makes it into actual training?
Building new facilities, hey we have empty schools, can’t they be used for training. Oh sorry not shiny and new.
Seems to just a waste of money with the usual leaches with their hands out.
It is very simple. They cannot sell the property for what they feel they want to get for it. It has been “written off” some time ago. The residual value is the value of the property.
They are trying to up sell it by getting a construction project for a company which has likely had some lean years recently in industrial construction and looking to diversify.
There is nothing altruistic about this project. It is a for profit company trying to feed potential money making schemes funded by taxpayers through the creation of a not for profit organization. Remember, the principal of BID needs guarantees. He is not interested in wasting time putting on bids on projects like this.
Sound familiar?
“Party leader Adrian Dix says he has visited the site a couple of times â I think itâs an excellent, exciting idea.”
LOL ….
Seems Dix is falling for the same trick. When one syas “excellent, exciting idea” to Fehr, his eyes light up like $$, and, in his mind, he has heard a promise.
It would be funny as hell if it were not so serious and involving our $, not Dix’s and not Fehr’s.
Remember, this was attempted for the Baldy Hughes site some decades ago. Did not fly then. Should not fly now.
By the way, that old proposal had a relatively well studied prospectus, as any good business start up should have. All I have seen of this one is some grade school drawings that looks like army baracks.
Where is the business plan? Let us see the level of effort that went into this? Probably the same effort that went into the expression of interest application to PartnershipsBC for the WIDC which Fehr did not get.
“the principal of BID needs guarantees. He is not interested in wasting time putting on bids on projects like this”
That quote still makes me laugh. Can you imagine if you were an actual developer looking to build and a contractor said he wouldnt waste his time bidding without some guarentee? How about a car salesman? “Id give you a price on that Chevy but I want a guarentee that you are going to buy it”
LOL
And just think of the poor real estate agents. How many failed WRITTEN offers with conditions which cannot be realized, or offers to low for the owner and rejected.
Even when making a retail sale, most retailers accept returns within a short time frame of purchase on such simple “excuses” as “it did not match the colour of my son’s eyes”.
Most of the work positions I have had entailed writing proposals, none of which were guaranteed. Some involved associated lobbying of people who were on the decision making side. Others were straight bids.
I found RFPs especially difficult because they pretended to be objectively reviewed, but that is virtually impossible.
Lowest bidder, take it or leave it, is the way to go if one wants to stay away from manipulation or influence peddling.
This project might make sense if existing facilities such as CNC were fully funded and operating at maximum capacity. It would be stupid to open another campus with all the administration and building maintenance costs etc that do nothing to benefit even one apprentice.
$50,000.00 donation from Fehr to the ndp is why the dix is showing even passing interest.
Most of the comments are showing insight in that the College of New Caledonia has empty trades classrooms in the new Trades buildings in both Prince George and Quesnel. This is in spite of wait lists for existing programs and many apprentices still being forced to programs down at the Coast. Missing from the discussion is the key role of the Industry Training Authority (ITA) who actually controls the funding and apprenticeships seats in classrooms.
The following clip is from the ITA website.
“The Industry Training Authority (ITA) is the provincial government agency that governs and manages B.C.’s industry trades training and certification system. ITA works with employers, employees, industry, labour, training providers and government to issue credentials, manage apprenticeships, set program standards, and increase opportunities in the trades.”
This group is staffed and controlled by industry special interest groups that are there to serve the needs of industry. So, it is interesting that we now see industry setting themselves up for training dollars and government money while the College system is underfunded by the the same hands.
Makes no sense to spend more money to fill the pockets of Fehr/BID on another wishy washy project proposal (where’s the business plan?). Brings to mind WIDC and Haldi Treatment Centre.
Guess his large $$$$ donation to NDP will be a good investment if he can persuade Dix to go along with the Rustad Training Centre. How good will it be if the taxpayers put out $10 million for it and then we have CNC and Rustad Centre lacking funds and instructors? I say, support CNC and forget about the Rustad site until there’s a good business plan for it showing it is needed and can be sustained….not just at election time and to support Fehr/BID/Canfor and the NDP election platform? The question also remains…how much will the cleanup of the site cost the taxpayers and how much will the taxpayers be on the hook for because of a business gone broke?
Vote wisely!
The trend in Canada has been the decline in students studying forestry. What Canada urgently needs is more health practitioners (nurse, medical Doctor, psychologist), social worker, physioterapists, medical technicians, chef, biologist/zoologist, and business people. See 2012 immigrant needs in Canada and rest of the world:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgNduZUapwYldFlVVDF5dHd1UmFJZDZybWtKemRnMEE#gid=7
What Canada is not looking for new immigrants are:
lawyer, economist, Lecturers, Electrical Engineers, IT engineers and programmers, civil engineers, mining engineers, radiologists, physiologist, forestry/agriculture engineer/technicians … .
Invest in areas where there is urgent need for it and direct students to those areas so that they find work easily after graduation.
Some of you are right on when you are concerned about the oil cleanup on the rustad site. Its called an envirinmental
Phase 1 study I believe. It could cost millions to clean up, and it will. Adrien
dix is willing to dole out 10 million, for a few votes, He needs to give that money to the existing training facilities. Pg
is full of double standards, and pocket liners.
univ … who is the source of data in your spreadsheet link? … that is pretty unusual data: both in content and format … looks like we should all move to New Zealand as this list says they need almost every category …
Instead of me posting more than one comment I will only post one and the other went to NDP etc….. Any of you done that????
It is compiled by BBC – in the majority of cases, based on OECD data (25 out of 34 countries) with the exception of Japan, Korea, Mexico, Chili, Israel, Estonia, Turkey, Netherlands, Italy, Iceland.
I drive by there every day and this whole thing is a sham. What`s up with the camp setup. Do you honestly think students will stay there? Bid and Canfor are asking the government (us) to pay them to put lipstick on their pig.
Maybe check in on how bid dismantled Clear Lake Sawmill
That is what their business is. Not education
You can also see the graphical version of the immigration data at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21938085
Nurses are the most sought after profession in the world. You can click on each profession or each country.
So Canfor and BID claim to have already spent $10 million on the site. Doing what ?
Doing nothing! Some of that 10million was shutting down Rustads. There is enough oil in the ground at the Rustad site to start a refinery.
do we really need another public training facility to train the people who don’t want to work…give assistance to private training facilities instead. We know gov’t employee’s from all gov’t agencies couldn’t operate a tri-cycle let alone properly hande and control tax payers money! most people looking to be re-trained are only looking for a longer free ride! this is another absurd idea that our gov’t beleives the elecorate wants…please lets put democracy back into our lives and allow the majority to actually stand…I am tired of the minorities always winning!
Yes, let’s get this training centre going – Fehr needs to ensure his confidant, Marshall Smith, needs some type of long term tenure, preferably supported by Government largesse and therefore off his payroll. Probably a prime candidate for the position of CEO!
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