Truck Rally Rolls Out Hundreds of Rigs
Fort St. John, B.C.- A tri-city truck rally saw major participation in Fort St. John as the final count noted 450 trucks took part in the noon hour event in the “Energetic City”.
The participation level evidence of the unemployment in the oil patch since the price of oil plunged.
The convoy stretched over 5kms in length, and snaked its way to the rallying point at the Rotary Park at Charlie Lake.
The rally in Ft. St. John was one of three slated to take place today, with the others set for Terrace and Ft. Nelson, all three events are meant to send a message that LNG projects must be approved.
The Federal Ministry of the Environment will soon release its decision on the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, a decision Independent Contractors and Businesses Association Senior Vice President Gord Stewart says may be the biggest economic decision the Trudeau government may make. ( see previous story).
One rally attendee tells 250News he hasn’t seen this kind of action since 1981 “There was a rally to ‘stop the hearings and start the dam’ as people pushed to get Site C started. That was another really bad time in the patch, and today is no different.”
Comments
Nice to see! There are sooo many trucks and equipment sitting waiting for projects waiting to be approved, once approved we can really jumpstart northern economies!
Cant see the approval for this one being denied as I recall one already has. The issue is the supply demand which is low as with the price and no investment dollars committed even with approval. The product has been drilled and capped in the ground with an amount of 20 billion cubic meters so who will put up the money to build the infrastructure needed to get the product to market. We are six- seven years away before any shipment happens. Would be beneficial to get at least one plant in operation someday. However we have other industries that need attention to day and their operating to day. Canfor has the largest forest license in BC parked with no Saw mill within 500 km in Fort Nelson. This is an excellent forest no bug kill but little happening and could employee hundreds if Government put some pressure on Canfor to either use it or lose it.
But where are we going to sell the products? It’s the same story as with LNG. Lots of resource, but no certain markets that can provide a return on investment. And plenty of competition, in this country and globally. Too much risk for too little reward, if any. Sure, you could take the forest licence away from Canfor and re-allocate it. But what would be gained? You may get some ‘jobs’ there, but they’ll only come at the expense of some other jobs elsewhere, and probably more of them, since each new plant built is designed for more product output with less labor input. Time we got our minds away from the notion of the ‘job’ as being the only way to distribute the ‘income’. Even if we had 100% full employment, all the wages and salaries paid out would still never buy all the products made at the costs of their making in one and the same time period. And if you can’t do it in any one given time period, how, then can you do it in the next one, or the one after?
Good luck with that. The demand has dropped and foreign producers are giving their LNG away.
Cheers
If they have to frack to get the gas out its going to poison the water and cause earthquakes. Go ahead poison everybody to make a buck. Life or slow death pick one
Ground water is contaminated with Sulfolane in Edson AB. Company was ordered to deliver drinking water to a family dairy farm.
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