Houston, B.C. – We will survive.

That’s the sentiment coming from the mayors of Houston and Smithers in the wake of the decision by Imperial Metals this week to lay off 100 workers at its Huckleberry Mine.

“Well we had heard rumours coming for some time but I don’t think that makes it any less disappointing,” says Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach, who notes roughly 20 of the employees live in his community.

“It’s not the kind of news that anyone wants to hear but it is a reality though, living in a resource economy, things go up and things go down and so some pretty challenging conditions right now with copper prices and we’re just going to have to wait to see if things improve.”

Houston Mayor Shane Brienen shares Bachrach’s assessment, noting 16 of his residents worked at Huckleberry.

“As to the impacts on the region and the town itself, I think they’ll be spread out a fair amount as the 100 laid off employees were spread out through the local communities, some as far away as Prince George,” he says.

“When we had our shutdown of the West Fraser Mill about a year and a half ago we were looking at the wages out at the mine and I think the average employee was making $65,000 to $67,000 a year so that’s a lot of money to take out of the local economy for sure.”

Brienen says Houston seems to have done a decent job of weathering the mill closure, even though it took 225 jobs with it.

“We seemed to have weathered it all right. Our population hasn’t seemed to have changed a whole lot. Our school numbers haven’t changed a whole lot,” he says.

“A lot of people stayed in town and found camp jobs, some people moved but we’re a resilient bunch.”

In addition,  provincial efforts to establish worker transition teams to provide direct support and services to affected workers is greatly appreciated.

“Oh for sure,” says Bachrach. There’s some great folks out there that are doing good work to support the people who have been affected,” he says. “I know in Smithers WorkBC does a great job and certainly the senior levels of government have come to the table, so people are doing as much as they can.”

Bachrach suggests it’s also time communities did a better job preparing for inevitable downturns.

“I think it really brings up the conversation about diversifying our economy so in those down times we have other things that help buffer those effects.”