Wonder how they calculated 55% of the jobs would be in the lower mainland? Doesn’t really add up. I could see large companies like Shell and Chevron having a head office in the lower mainland, but would over half of the workers be there?

Then there’s that comment about exports doubling since 1991. How much of that number is inflation? Was 1991 a really low year for some reason. You can make numbers sound great if you don’t really look at them too close.

Overall, yes resource jobs are great. There’s no denying that.

This is simply a report commissioned from a group that is looking for specific points to show off. I would like to see what the myths that proved to be correct are. Surely every negative myth that was dispelled wasn’t the only outcome for all economic points. Is the fact that the majority of jobs supposedly going to the lower mainland supposed to make the people in the actual extraction areas, which have to put up with any environmental impact, happy with this report? I would say that is a real negative for anyone up here who is hoping to capitalize on these projects.

For every worker that has their boots in the mud, there is at least 1 or 2 people working in an office somewhere in an administrative capacity. People forget that there’s a tremendous amount of paperwork that accompanies the field work.

It’s time people wake up to the benefit to the economy that resource jobs provide, instead of turning their noses up.

johnnybelt, you are so right.

The same people that are opposing development of our resources forget how their paycheck is made.

You won’t see too many blue collar workers holding up picket signs to stop Enbridge. They know which side of the bread has the butter.

Exactly JB and He spoke – I am noticing a lot of “new environmentalists” as I call them. They have made their money and career off of the environment. Bought houses, put kids through college etc etc. Now they are at or near retirement age and suddenly resource extraction is evil and progress must be stopped. Easy to say when you are sitting on the computer in your mortgage free house waiting for your pension to kick in I guess…

Who is saying that all resource extraction is evil and that progress must be stopped? Do people not understand that there is a rather significant difference between being against a specific project within an industry and being against the entire industry altogether? Lumping the two into the same category is absurd.

Just because someone doesn’t like refried beans, doesn’t mean they don’t like Mexican food.

“BC’s resources follow a boom-bust cycle”

==================================

I think they are lumping all resource industries together. Of course when you do this there will be less boom and bust because the overall example is somewhat diversified between forestry, oil and gas, mining, etc.

To suggest that each specific industry isn’t boom and bust though, is ridiculous IMHO. Tell that to the workers who used to work at the mills that have already been shut down or wait 5 years and talk to the people who used to be employed in the forestry industry in and around PG.

The resource sector is too small to significantly impact the BC economy

Resources create few good jobs

===================================

These are myths???? I figured it was pretty common knowledge that the opposite was true.

If you even mention the word “environment” on this board, there are a few here who ONLY hear that as “against” all resource based jobs or economy. It matters not what context you put the word in, it is apparently a bad word to some. I could also put to people like interceptor that there ARE a lot of people in the age group that are close to retirement that worked in the resource sector their careers, but maybe think there is a better way to do things instead of they way they were done 20 or 30 years ago. If you want to call them “new environmentalists”, have at er. I call them enlightened and maybe looking to the future rather than repeat mistakes of the past.

It sure is convenient and cozy to be ‘enlightened’ after you’ve made all your money and are living on a nice pension.

If you look at resource extraction today vs. 20-30 years ago, you would find that there are a way more regulations and rules with respect to how its done. We’re doing it better now than we ever have, and improvements are always being made. But for some, it will never be enough.

… and in other news forestry inspections have dropped from 35,000 a year ten years ago to under 5000 a year now as the Ministry of Forests has been massively downsized… over harvesting in just one forest district is said to be at 29,000 logging truck loads pf green wood that should be set aside for future generations after the beetle fall down….

Never let facts get in the way of a good line eh…. :)