A community that embraces economic development versus nimby central. Do the math.

I’d say a bigger factor is that Fort St John is tiny compared to PG. I think that sort of forces them to develop within a more focused area than in PG where sprawl is so much more pronounced.

It doesn’t hurt that a lot of investment has come to Fort St John in recent years.

PG does get it’s fair share of money coming in. Problem that I see is PG also tends to have outflows of investment too. Case in point, the declining forest industry. The overall effect is a growth rate for PG is essentially zero.

One only has to ask the citizens of PG that were around when the pulp mills were built to see the big change that PG went through. Around that time I bet the downtown core was hopping.

I would be much more interested in a community that doesn’t have big growth numbers and was able to revitalize their downtown core…… that would be a true accomplishment!!

Spot on mwk . Inflow is what’s needed or taking advantage of what’s there is in a diversified way . Too bad also that pg has the back benches in both houses covered . Just look at the premiers riding got to day . Bchydro is going to put up wind farms in her riding . More high paying jobs for some poor guys that will have to live in kelowna . I guess bchydro figures that the wind blows a lot harder there than it does near pg .

Oh and plus . They will be a visible reminder of which side of the bread the butter is on ,next election .

Further to the announcement in the statement mentions ” and northern BC ” . ??????

The downtown was hopping when the Pulp Mills were being built. There were a number of beer parlors in the immediate area. ie:

Columbus, Europe, Astoria, Croft, Canada, MacDonalds, PG Hotel. These beer parlors were usually full on the week-ends along with the restaurants in the area, plus the various stores.

Its a tail of demographics for PG the last 20-years. 90% of all growth has been in the 55+ demographic as people live longer and move on up into the higher demographic. The same can be said for employment in the labor pool.

The 25-45 year demographic has seen its population decline nearly in half over the last 20-years. This is the prime family building demographic that sustains a future population and pays into the system during the working years. When any city looses half its 25-45 demographic and all else being equal we can count on at least a couple of decades of declining population and all the ramifications this has on things like real estate and development momentum… pending a clear cut game changer.

The student population numbers in School District 57 are now nearly half what they were in the early 1990’s, so we see the inertia throughout the government forecasts for investment into local services.

PG’s population may have stabilized of sorts at a low permanent decline of a few hundred to a thousand or so a year, but the demographics tell a far more foreboding tale of where we are now and what lies ahead in the near future. That is why I can’t understand the notion we can take on more debt to finance the dream capital expenditures of IPG and the downtown property owners… when clearly the writing is on the wall we will not have the population to support an increasing civic budget… unless the city plans to shake down seniors of tomorrow out of their last bit of fixed income to finance the dreams of today’s spenders.

IMO the way PG breaks out of this trend and embarks on a new period of growth include:
– moving the forestry ministry to downtown PG.
– establish PG as the center for the BC gas industry HQ with head offices located in the north for all ‘subsidiary’ profit centers of the major gas players.
– linking the old BCR line through to Alaska (linking to the trans Russian railway) with the central interior becoming a potential transcontenantial rail hub.
– an air container port actually begins to build momentum and grow into anything even remotely like what they have going on in Alaska.
– The central interior is opened up to Alberta and Southern BC with a highly efficient highway system befitting a modern economy. This would need to cut the transit to Vancouver to under 5-hours IMO… the best route would be directly through Whistler to make it doable.
– The city gets out of debt and out from under its interest rate risk, focuses on new sources of funding from senior levels of government sources, and focuses on frugal use of tax dollars for quality of life standards that attract outside lifestyle investors.

All of those things could change the momentum of PG, but they all require a lot more vision and political advocacy skill to move the agenda forward than any of our more recent politicians have shown themselves capable of.

What is Zimmers plan to move PG forward? Anyone have a clue how he plans to revitalize the pressing issues facing PG? Hiding out in an Israeli bunker on a paid junket to become a propagandist patsy sure won’t get us there. We don’t even need to do the math to figure that one out.

The reason Sd57 enrollment numbers are going down is the city has effectively nixed any plans to give the younger generation anything to do, so they pretty much leave after they graduate. Like it or not the younger gen likes night life councillor. No younger generation – no steady supply of toddlers. The city needs to get its head out of its buttocks and actually allow some developments that entice the younger crowd to find a job and stay here and not get the hell out of Dodge at the first opportunity – and a PAC is not it by a long shot

Who cares what Zimmer’s plans are – he has a riding to deal with not just the city of PG. The federal NDP or Liberals would do less for this region than the Conservatives – don’t kid yourself. I care what the city hall and council’s plans are – they dictate the growth of the city, and by their decisions over the last 8 to 10 years we are a lost cause. I was really hoping the last changeup would make a difference but so far it is either the steep learning curve or just too much to deal with for the newbies on council to effect any change in the cities mentality.

Ataloss – Taylor is near Fort St John so yes northern BC

These are each 15 Megawatts and less – BC Hydro is not building them but rather Zero Emission Energy Developments Inc from White Rock has plans for 3 wind farms of 15 MW each:
15-megawatt Pennask Wind Farm near West Kelowna,
15-megawatt Shinish Creek Wind Farm near Summerland and
15-megawatt Septimus Creek Wind Farm near Taylor.”

“B.C. currently has four operating wind farms with electricity purchase agreements with BC Hydro. Three are in the Peace region and one is on Vancouver Island. They are:

The 144-megawatt Dokie Wind Energy project near Chetwynd,
The 102-megawatt Bear Mountain Wind project near Dawson Creek,
The 142-megawatt Quality Wind project near Tumbler Ridge and
The 99-megawatt Cape Scott Wind Farm on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
The 185-megawatt Meikle Wind project near Tumbler Ridge is under construction. It will start producing power in late 2016”