Budget Committee Hears Northern Wish Lists
Tuesday, October 8, 2013 @ 10:12 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The bi-partisan committee that is collecting information for the development of the 2014 Provincial budget, is hearing many of the same issues throughout the province.
Chair Dan Ashton says the messages he has been hearing all express an understanding for the tight fiscal reality, but, are followed by a request “are telling us, that if there is money to be spent, here’s what we would like to see.”
Initiatives Prince George reiterated a call it has made annually for the past several years to previous budget committees, and that is for consideration on transportation. IPG’s Heather Oland called on the Committee to realize there will be increased activity along the east-west and north – south corridors and to improve the highways to handle that increased heavy traffic.
While the city of Prince George is now developing a policy to work with the Province on Natural Resources Revenue Sharing, IPG has called on the budget committee to make that a priority. Revenue sharing is already in place in a couple of northern communities ( the Peace Region and Northern Rockies) where the communities are given a share of the revenue from industry that is not necessarily in their limits, but for which they carry a load to support those who work in the industry.
The CNC Students Union reps called for reduced tuition rates, lower student debt interest rates, and the reintroduction of student grants.
The Faculty Association of CNC repeated that call, recognizing the financial burden students are facing especially at a time when trades training should be a priority.
There were calls for careful consideration on the impact staffing cuts can have in Ministries such as Forests and Lands. The presentation from the Central Interior Logging Association said staff reductions can lead to delays in permitting, and that could mean increased costs for those on the ground .
The submissions to the committee continue until noon today at the Ramada Hotel. You can also submit a written, audio or video submissions or respond to an online survey.
The deadline for public input is Wednesday, October 16, 2013. The Committee will report on the results of the consultations by November 15.
Comments
Not sure what the increased activity on the East West/North South corridor would be.
We need to keep I mind that the Major upgrades to Endako Mines, the new Smelter in Kitimat, and the transmission line North on Highway 37 are almost complete. These project took place without any major change to the transportation system.
Once (if ever) the LNG plants are built the product will come in by pipeline and go out by ship, so we wont need additional Highways for LNG.
Minerals from the proposed mines on Highway 37 will probably be exported through the Port of Stewart, and the minerals from the mine at Mount Milligan will probably go out by rail from Ft St James, or MacKenzie.
Soooo, why the need for increased highway capacity. Some more passing lanes, and upgrades on Highway 16 West should be sufficient. Highway 16 East is practically devoid of traffic, and will remain so. 97 North has very little commercial traffic,. 97 South has no more trucks to-day than it had 10/15 years ago.
Seems the process above is mostly a dog and pony show.
I was under the impression that the improvements to the HWY97 north portion was to allow more competition to service the Peace, rather than that service to come via Alberta.
I would like to see some examples as well as guesstimates of some increase in service from BC companies rather than Alberta companies. I am very suspicious of the impression that such a highway improvement would make a difference as far as getting new traffic and new business for BC to stop a significant component of the leakage to Alberta.
There are other things which would have to be done in tandem if the Highway were improved in a major way.
Of course, if there were to be more traffic to the north, much of it would come from the south and perhaps distributed from here to the west and the north. That would then mean a more rapid improvement of the Cariboo connector.
Improvements have been made in the Pine Pass, but the highway still can not service the Peace from PG. It has major bottle necks in places like the Parsnip River and Salmon Valley Bridge, the Pine River rail overpass, and North of the Pine the road is not wide enough for wide loads with the highway not even having a white line much less a shoulder, and in winter is nearly a single lane highway.
In Alberta Red Deer does more work with the Peace than PG does, and they are at least 4-5 hours further away. In Red Deer they have light standards that swing out of the way for oil industry components and clear highways that can handle the over sized loads. We just simply can’t compete here in PG.
Mr Black said as much when talking of his Kitimat refinery proposal last week. Said we simply don’t have the infrastructure to move refinery components to the interior to a place like PG, and thus it would add $3 billion to the cost to have the components built on site. The same logic goes in both directions.
As for 16 west it really should be upgraded from PG to Vanderhoof. Most all the growth in the region is centered around Vanderhoof with the mines and access to the pipeline routes. Without an upgrade then I think Vanderhoof will become the staging ground for these projects due to logistics.
Comments for this article are closed.