”  attend job fairs and  campus recruiting events especially in the  ten  cities listed. “
Ya but travelling to China is more sexy!

PG is not a bad place to live. It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst either.

There is a serious lack of civic pride which only seems to get worse as the years go on. When asked, people seem apologetic to be from Prince George. We are our own worst enemies. And then we wonder why it’s hard to get people to move here?

So is it fair to say many are right? = IPG does not know what it is doing? Maybe time to shut it down!

“Develop a labour market integration program which offers training, mentorship, job placement and coaching programs.”

For years it has been said the old boys clubs/businesses etc in this city need to change their ways.

Maybe they should actually be talking or should I say “Listen” to the younger generations that have left this city to get work elsewhere and I do not mean just the oilfields.

guesswhat: “So is it fair to say many are right? = IPG does not know what it is doing? Maybe time to shut it down!”

IPG has been going through the motions for years. The only amazing part is that we as taxpayers keep funding it.

How long as IPG been in existence and how much taxpayer money have they received and still the perception of Prince George is negative? Ironically they commissioned a study that is a damming report on IPG’s ability to delivery on it’s purpose – to promote PG and drive economic development.

Maybe mayor and council should get ride of the organization and use the tax dollars to pay for a major TV campaign featuring Northern Gateway’s Janet Holder as she can make anything sound wonderful.

JohnnyBelt: “IPG has been going through the motions for years. The only amazing part is that we as taxpayers keep funding it.”

Exactly!

Inertia keeps it going. There needs to be an external (therefore not from within city hall) force applied to stop it.

What is it exactly supposed to do again???

Any survey can be skewed. What questions did they omit.

One of the main questions should be is if a winter city had any bearing. A Lot of people hate the snow.

I wonder how this question would skew their stats

is this a mistake, that ‘university professors and lecturers’ are one of the most in-demand jobs in pg? isn’t UNBC in the process of laying off staff, including instructional staff? even if growth at UNBC was increasing steadily, what would the actual number of available academic positions be? 5? 10? what a ridiculous claim.

as someone that has been a grad student and knows many people who chose to go into post-grad work, I know that new phd’s in most humanities/sciences/engineering programs are a dime a dozen and would beat down the doors to get even a part-time teaching gig somewhere. Millwrights, I understand. There are constant job postings for millwrights, truck drivers, welders, etc…

Maybe if PG had a senate maybe “our senate” could comprise of IPG members. Just drawing a parallel to the Senate and IPG. Both useless. Less useless than our UN. But on the whole, as useless. 3 uselessnesses. IPG, The Senate and the UN. Cool, eh?

It’s quite obvious there is not enough employment here to attract new workers or the population would have grown. Employers have to be willing to take on apprentices and train them on the job. Job fairs are not the answer – trades should be an important factor in the education of secondary students so that the students are aware of the various trades – have IPG do talks in the secondary schools to the students so that they are aware of the jobs available.

IPG sure has a swell website. Maybe IPG could develop an “app” for that. Good way to justify their budget.

I would like to hear from both IPG and DBIA the answer to the following question in plain language so all us simple pg folk can understand.

What is your mandate, your mission statement, and vision statement?

I know I could look to their web site, but I am interested in hearing from the big kahuna of each organization.

of course, these SERVICE organization have no time for us little guys.

You know -IPG likes to travel,maybe the Ten places they have listed is where they are going next.

Well, in my opinion it all boils down a combination of visible and invisible accomplishments achieved by any agency (like IPG) and even the City.

If the visible part is not pleasing almost all of it gets a thumbs down. Residents of PG are doing their part with great gardens and well kept residences, but the appearance of most of the stuff the City is in charge of is well below acceptable standards. Chewed up curbs stones, broken curb corners, cracked sidewalks, leaning traffic signs and power poles, crudely patched up potholes…and so forth!

Take the roller dome and its immediate surroundings for instance! How can the City allow such decrepit looking conditions at the busiest intersection in town?

Just one example, of course. One can give dozens more! How about enforcing some minimum appearance standards? They better invest any planned money in real visible city improvements rather than one more expensive venue downtown, surrounded by obvious neglect.

The City does not have an inviting look about it, at all.

I agree Prince George. Drive into any city down south and you get beautiiful landscaping along the sides and the meridians. We get weed filled red bricks. Would this not be a provincial juristiction? If so has any body tried to get their attention? It’s all about first impressions.

Maybe IPG needs to go on another trip to see how other cities do this. I aggree with the idea of shutting this IPG down. Its nothing but a bunch of job creations paid by the taxpayers. I wonder who is behind all this?

No need to waste time and our money travelling!

Go to Google. Click on Images. Type in Downtown Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton…Voila! Ditto for Landscaped planted highway meridians? Kelowna, Vernon, etc have seemingly endless kilometers of those! Prince George’s Bypass – zero! It was declared recently by the provincial highways minister a wilderness highway and thereby not a responsibility of the department to mow the ditches more than twice a year…anybody remember that?

It is up to the City to make sure we don’t get the brush-off so that the others can be looked after royally and as a matter of fact!

Lets separate and form our own province.The province of New Caledonia.Prince George would make a nice Capital.As things now stand ,a one way money pipeline to Victoria pilfers the resource rich North.In return ,Victoria insults all of Northern BC by throwing us scraps.Inferior roads ,services,schools and on.The new capital will have the power to Tax.No more of our taxes being spent on bridges in the lower mainland.No more serfdom for northerners.New Caledonia has a nice ring to it.

Lets separate and form our own province.The province of New Caledonia.Prince George would make a nice Capital.As things now stand ,a one way money pipeline to Victoria pilfers the resource rich North.In return ,Victoria insults all of Northern BC by throwing us scraps.Inferior roads ,services,schools and on.The new capital will have the power to Tax.No more of our taxes being spent on bridges in the lower mainland.No more serfdom for northerners.New Caledonia has a nice ring to it.

Why would PG be the capital city? Forestry isn’t the driver it used to be in the north, oil and gas is. Dawson Creek, Fort St. John or Fort Nelson should be the capital.

Or are you hoping to throw scraps to the Peace the same way that Victoria throws scraps to the north?

Heck for that matter, why would the Peace want to be part of New Caledonia? Why would anyone west of Fraser Lake want to be?

I honestly think New Caledonia would be a have not Province.

I agree NMG…how about a city slogan change. I always thought ” b.c’s northern capital ” was kind of arrogant.

I don’t think there is a perception problem, I think the impressions are fairly accurate. Prince George is in decline. This is being hurried along by inept municipal governance in my opinion.

I think poverty levels in a city can be a stark harbinger. I’ve lived in this town for a long time and I’ve watched the levels of poverty and homelessness grow. The industrial economy here has all but collapsed and that situation isn’t going to change anytime soon I don’t think. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think there isn’t a reason for Prince George to go on, but I do think it’s long overdue that we retool and rethink our situation and start thinking about the overall sustainability of our community.

Prince George is ripe for densification and urban renewal. I think a lot of the areas of town have reached the right age for this paradigm shift. We need to clean up the pollution problem downtown, and then we need to rethink our City boundaries. We need more multifamily dwellings in the core interspersed with more green space. Then we need to change policies that will bring and end to our urban sprawl problem. This is not sustainable, and part of the reason we’re facing a city-crushing infrastructure problem. Taxes should be proportional to what it costs to service property. If you want to live out on 5 acres and have city services, well you’re going to have to pay the incremental cost of bringing those services to your door; you’d pay more for roads, water, sewer & garbage service. I used to live East of the City on a 2 acre lot with city services and the house was 100 feet off the road. On the other side of the road was nothing but wide open fields. I paid the same tax rates as someone living on Alward street with houses right on top of one another relativistically. It was fantastic for me, but I recognized how wrong and unfair it was. You should have to pay a premium for City services out there. It’s so much more tax efficient to service the guy on Alward as opposed to me and we need to start recognizing that.

I think we need a clean sweep of Council too. I think it might be time to retool the management structure at the Hall too, because it’s clearly not working. We need more business savvy folks at the helm. Sorry, sociology and public administration degrees don’t cut it as these are more like a euphemism for no tangible skills and it shows. We have to learn how to start doing more with less. From where I’m sitting, not one person on Council gets that new necessity. We need to increase our efficiency and drastically reduce our drag coefficient.

When you can boast about being one of the most tax efficient jurisdictions in Canada that understands the fundamentals of the new epoch we’re entering, coupled with marketing the outdoor potential of the place, people will flock here because so will business.

Great post Sine Nomine!

This report is sad, its sad because it is 100% right!! Prince George is a nasty, stinky, run down, crime ridden s*ithole and thats a fact. Why doesnt the city of Kamloops have “Air Quality Advisories”? have you walked downtown in Kamloops or Vernon, its thriving. Here in PG the downtown is turned over to drug addicts, lowlifes and street people after 6. The reason PG cant attract any quality people….is becuase there are so few Quality people here to begin with. Say your from PG and people go “awww…” lol Face it this place sucks, and its only gettin worse!!

Yes give Fort Nelson or Ft St John the title of British Columbia the northern capital title.Then rename the UNBC , the hospital ,, the list goes on and on. North of what I ask ? The last time I looked we where 100 km off the geographical center of this province. Get stared renaming;}

A new Northern Province would benefit all of the North.The new Northern province would have full provincial autonomy like any other province in Canada.Taxes would no longer go to Victoria but would be collected here for the benefit of all Northerners.A new Northern province could for example decide through referendum wether or not it is in our interest to eliminate or reduce the Provincial Sales Tax.Victoria would no longer have any say in the matter.We not Victoria would decide what to do with our tax dollars.Surely NMG Would agree that the PST is not in the economic interests of the North.The North needs political autonomy so we can determine our future.Otherwise Victoria will take and take and give back only crumbs to the North.

Can someone please tell me.They say we are short of Pro engeneers,chartered accountants,University professors,welders,mechanics and the list goes on.Maybe IPG could tell me the name of employers that are looking for these employees and how many employees are needed for each job that is listed in Prince George.The way they talk it sounds like we could put 50 welders to work tomorrow.

AWWWW ,,, its because they are envious. Like I have said a few times before if people don’t like it here they are free to leave. Whats stopping all these people that dislike this place so much? If Kamloops and Vernon are thriving you should be there, Im sure they cant wait to have you join there community, Cheers

Victoria is the Problem

Vancouver is a vampire,they are sucking us dry.Vancouver is the problem

First and foremost, Prince George needs to quit lying to itself.

Oland as an example states that the Winter Games will give us all kinds of attention all over the Country and we should take advantage of this opportunity. Fact of the matter is the Winter Games in Canada a mere two week sporting event for a few thousand people in the middle of winter will get us next to nothing. Lets remember that Whitehorse Yukon and Grande Prairie held the Winter games, and it was barely mentioned in Prince George. The reverse is true. So blow the horn all you want, just don’t expect anyone to hear it.

The Mayor and Council are too busy finding ways to grind us for taxes and services, so they don’t have time to properly represent the City. Business and Industry spends very little to keep things looking good.

We need to clean up the downtown. Not only in regards to the streets and storefronts, but also the **hangers on**. We used to have the Police foot patrol downtown, now they are conspicuous by their absence.

We need to quit trying to sell off our assets such as the Pine Valley Golf course just to satisfy the short term goals of some business people. This course belongs to the citizens of Prince George and we need it for years to come for Seniors, Juniors, people with mobility problems, and just to have a green space in the City that looks good.

The City will put the wrecking ball to the Playhouse Theatre sell the land and use the money to help finance a Performing Arts Centre. They will do this without giving the taxpayers of Prince George a vote on whether or not we want a PAC. What the hell is that all about. We are entitled to a vote.

The Mayor some Councilors and some Administration believe that we are not intelligent enough to know what we want, and therefore they will provide.

Everything this City does costs taxpayers huge dollars. This has to stop.

Lets get some pride in the City, and get away from this continual BS about attracting business, and people. The City wants more business and people to collect more taxes. Lets fix up what we have, and if we do it right, we will naturally attract people.

Walking around all puffed up, stating how great we are doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and will not work.

Our hands and feet are tied.Victoria controls everything.We Northerners need to control our own purse strings.If we don’t do this nothing will ever change.

Prince George. The city so great they named a future king after it.

There seems to be a lot about P.G. to dislike, and I agree with some of the previous comments, but how about some of the positives?
– its pretty friendly, overall
– getting to be more good restaurants
– property prices are still reasonable
– easy access to outdoor recreation
– loads of reasonably priced rural property within a half hour in any direction
– you get to learn how to drive on ice, and the slaloms (around potholes) are free

Bad air days; can’t do much about those, geography and local industry determine the quality of City air on no wind days, and the spring dust? well we need sand on the ice, its going to get dusty for awhile until the streets are swept. Can’t control it 100% of the time.
For us, the main negative about living here is the length of the winter. Other than that, can’t think of anywhere South I would rather live. For a milder climate, you are going to in or near a major city, and that’s not for me.
metalman.

For a milder climate all you need to do is move to the island. Once there you have all the positives mentioned by metalman plus more,.

Prince George can be a much better City, however it needs a complete overhaul, both physically and mentally.

I agree that the Winters suck, mainly because of the length, and darkness. Lack of sunshine can cause depression.

We need to get serious about cleaning up the City. I see volunteers out picking up garbage along Ospika Blvd. There is one hell of a lot of paper strewn on this street and most of it is from fast food joints. Its amazing how many people in this town think that its just fine to throw your garbage in the street.

I could go on, but its to early in the Am