The new buzz in construction work is no doubt having an affect  on the population of Prince George.

In the past, large construction projects would mean that a new town would need to be built along with the necessary services to support the work force. In the past two decades that has been done away with  to the benefit of those companies.

If, for example, you construct a 1,000 person camp, you need only to provide room, board and some other limited recreation activities . The task of ensuring that the families have a proper school to have their children attend, health care, expanded recreational facilities, service , banking etc  falls on the community from where these workers have come, by the way at the expense of those communities.

A flight direct from Vancouver  and Kelowna to Ft McMurray daily means a couple of thousand workers from these two areas alone. . The companies can afford to pay more to the employees because they don’t need to provide expensive services in order to attract the workers.

Who gets the bill for health care when a worker requires specialized  emergency medical care  but is a resident of say New Brunswick?  Well we do , the general taxpayer. That same example can be cited in most of the other areas that I have mentioned.

We do get the workers to spend their off time in the region but that increasingly has been in the areas of warm climates. Many who work in Ft Mac , live in the southern USA where the cost of living is much less than in Canada.

It has been a wind fall for the large companies that are doing business in Canada, unfortunately it is doing much less for the communities who formerly housed these workers such as Prince George, and the practice is growing.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.