Province Acts to Help Huckleberry Miners
Prince George, B.C. – There is already action being taken to help the workers at Imperial Metals’ Huckleberry Mine near Houston.
Imperial Metals announced yesterday that it was suspending opening pit operations at the copper mine because of slumping copper prices. The decision will see 100 workers laid off, another 160 will have work for the next few months milling the stockpile of ore.
“Losing a job is a very difficult circumstance for workers and their families and we want to make sure we are providing as much support as possible” says Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training..
She says as soon as the Ministry was made aware of the layoffs, Ministry staff “reached out to Huckleberry Mine, as well as the Mayor and the District of Houston. Ministry staff are establishing a worker transition team and are coordinating provincial efforts to provide direct support and services to affected workers, including helping them find other job opportunities.”
The provincial government provides support for resource-based communities experiencing significant job loss impacts. Supports and services are quickly mobilized in worker transition, economic diversification planning and social services, and are coordinated with other services provided by the local government and community agencies.
WorkBC has been in contact with the mine and is already providing supports. Anyone who is experiencing a job loss should contact the local Houston Work BC Employment Services Centre at:
3400-11th Avenue
Houston, BC V0J 1Z0
1-877-947-0182
Federal MP for the area, Nathan Cullen, says he too has been in contact with Houston’s community leaders ““The wheels are already in motion to minimize the impact on Northwest communities.”
Cullen says information was being gathered on where the workers live and the expected length of the reduced operations “Any insight about the future of the mine will definitely help us to plan our next steps”.
The news of the layoffs is the second major blow to Houston in less than two years. It was May of 2014 that West Fraser closed its sawmill in the region, throwing 225 people out of work.
Comments
Perhaps the Government can give us some examples of how people were helped with this program, and how many people were able to find jobs.
One has to wonder what is happening in Fraser Lake with the closure of Endako Mines a year ago. Workers in that area are probably now out of EI. Were these Government programs able to find them work in other areas?? If so where??
No jobs, but we have more poorly trained truck drivers with no experience hauling anything but the advertisement for the training company.
Maybe what they will do is have another job fair to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. The trainers will be all lined up at their desks to retrain you at a great cost to you for a job that doesn’t exist. Don’t expect to get any financial help from the Government.
You guys are all so pessimistic. There’s going to be 100,000 new jobs created by the LNG industry starting any day now…just ask Mike or Shirley.
Prince George has lots of Job loss as well you just don’t hear about it, out in the Industrial Site, machines are sitting idle and people are laid off.
Fate. d a y is not how decade is spelt. Is your auto correct function on?
Any day has now come and gone….Prosperity my A$^*#$.
Our provincial jumps in to help once the jobs are lost… if they only did so much to keep the jobs going…. but now they are trying to look like saviours…
PVal, why don’t you tell us how the KGB er NDP would have jumped in to save these jobs!
Would they have subsidized the price of copper for them? Would they have provided grants (our tax dollars) to Imperial Metals to keep the mine operating at a loss?
Perhaps, but isn’t that the corporate welfare that you socialists are always railing against?
Reality is that when your job relies on the demand for a certain commodity and the price your employer can get for that commodity isn’t enough to keep the doors open and the lights on, your job becomes either temporarily or permanently obsolete!
What’s the NDP got to do with it?
Spelt
Wheat
Spelt, also known as dinkel wheat, or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat cultivated since 5000 BCE.
If you spell it in the past tense, one adds an “ed”, so that it is spelled correctly.
Very true hawwk. The NDP did that with the pulp mill in Rupert, cost the Province millions. Cullen has never created a legitimate tax paying job in industry in his life: him and his ilk will wish they had supported the Gateway pipeline in the first place. I believe it would have created more than a few jobs. Hope he gets a real laugh when Enbridge and partners sue our new pretty boy PM for billions over its demise.
contractor– Seems to me we had the same problem in Mackenzie BC but you would have to ask PAT Bell about that one.
Thanks for the grammar lesson Loki.
How much money will the province give to management?
Cheers
The provincial government provides support for resource-based communities experiencing significant job loss impacts. Supports and services are quickly mobilized in worker transition, economic diversification planning and social services, and are coordinated with
other services provided by the local government and community agencies.
You know this is a real mouthfull of words . Please tell me what this means and what you actually do. Does this include retraining to a worker at no cost to the person.
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