“Our membership is so badly in need of drivers and people to work in forestry, they are hoping this campaign will be successful” says MaryAnne Arcand of the Central Interior Logging Association.”

Da’ maybe it has a little to do with the 14 to 16 hour days. Shorten the work days down to something reasonable and you should be able to get drivers and other forestry related crews.

Don’t come here! City council is out of control, property tax hikes, utility tax hikes with no end in sight! Stay away……

Compared to much of the world, Prince George is a pretty good place to live.

Yes, PG has its problems and issues, but we have ‘first world’ problems around here which much of the world would probably think is pretty small potatoes.

“They offered to move this fellow and his family to Chetwynd, to give him $20 thousand dollars for the downpayment of a home and pay for his education upgrades needed to pass Canadian standards.”

A lot of workers in Prince George would love an employer to give them that type of break!

Those kinds of deals are not unusual if you have an engineering background. And even then, the guy turned it down because he didn’t want to live in Chetwynd. Fiji to Chetwynd is quite the adjustment! ;-)

I know a number of Asian families that lived in Prince George for a few years, made a few bucks, and then moved to Surrey.

I doubt that you can entice them to Prince George for the same jobs that they can get in the Greater Vancouver area.

At the same time IPG is going to Ireland to try and get some trades people to come to Prince George, a large number of Companies in Vancouver are going to Ireland, to try and hire 700 trades people. Mainly Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters, Welders, etc;

So, I wonder where they will go, hmmmm, Greater Vancouver, or Prince George. Gee I just cant make up my mind. Gotta love that pulp mill refinery smell, plus six months of winter, plus snow, snow, snow.

Let the chips fall where they may.

Lower Mainland, rip-off housing costs and 1 hour+ commutes. Not everybody’s cup of tea.

Sorry folks, the reality is that for the most part, people are refusing because it’s Chetwnyd. It’s small, it’s isolated, it’s not culturally diverse, there aren’t a great deal of services, entertainment options are limited, etc. You could say the same thing for a hundred other cities across the country.

The majority of immigrants choose the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal. Weather may play a role, but I think it’s impact is greatly exaggerated. Most of Canada gets cold in the winter and many places are as harsh as Northern BC. If you travel to large cities you’ll find immigrant populations. If you travel to small cities, not so much.

“Fiji to Chetwynd is quite the adjustment!”

The reverse is also true.

We have to remember, we are mostly creatures of habit …. we are used to a lifestyle, whether it is economic or social or environment.

Change too many things, or change one key thing, and people will eventually head back home or closer to a “home” lifestyle.

There are many immigrants to Canada, even from Europe, who ended up returning to their home country, whether England or Netherlands, Ireland, etc. especially when economic conditions started to turn around.

As they say, “home is where the heart is” and that is the case with most immigrants.

Weather, food, other folks who understand and live your own culture …..

Football in Canada is just not the same as football in the Netherlands. Just a fact of life.

gus, this is very true.

It’s funny, I was driving around Ottawa the other day and I took a wrong turn and ended up going through Chinatown. Neat area, even though I think there are more Thai and Vietnamese restaurants than there are Chinese. That doesn’t matter though.

When I go for runs by the canal, I often start out at Dow’s Lake which is right near the entrance to Little Italy.

Downtown Ottawa is full of Shawarma restaurants, which for those of you who haven’t tried it, is freshly sliced grilled chicken or beef served on a type of flat bread with various vegetables. The number of these restaurants is no doubt influenced by the large Lebanese population here in Ottawa.

Head over to Montreal and this is amplified even further. You have all of the diversity of a large urban centre co-mingling with the extensive French culture. It’s quite something to experience for a guy born and raised in PG.

This got me thinking about other large cities I’ve been to and how they all have these unique areas, pockets of culture or “customs” so to speak. In contrast, most small cities seem to take a more “blended” approach, where everything is just sort of homogenized.

I was left with the conclusion that diversity is a significant positive characteristic for a city to have if one is aiming for growth. I think it gets back to what gus talked about where he said people want to be comfortable. They want to be able to interact with people with shared experiences, they want to worship in certain types of temples or churches and they want to eat certain types of foods. This is especially important for immigrants, not so much so for second or third generation people who have grown up in Canada and typically accept the entire Canadian “package” as their own culture. If they grew up in a large centre (which statistics tell us most do), then that diversity is part of that package and it’s incredibly difficult for small cities to compete with that.

My suggestion for smaller towns or cities is to embrace diversity and to celebrate it. Don’t expect people to change when they come to you, you need to change so that people will want to come.

Chetwynd has a lot of immigrants. A percentage as high as anywhere else outside of the Lower Mainland. When I’m up there I see a lot of Filipino, Chinese, and Korean workers. Most of the service industry in the town is employing immigrant workers.

Reason the trucking companies are having such a hard time finding drivers is it just doesn’t pay anymore. Lots of guys are leaving to become councilors, nurses, or going into the trades.