Addition to WIDC Announced
Wednesday, February 1, 2017 @ 12:56 PM
Premier Christy Clark at BCNRF luncheon -Photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – Premier Christy Clark has made two announcements that will benefit Prince George and region.
In her luncheon address to delegates attending the BCNRF , she announced a new building will be constructed next to the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in downtown Prince George The facility will cost $4.5 million dollars and will benefit programs being offered at WIDC.
The funding is a joint effort between the Province and the Federal government.
Premier Clark also said $27 million dollars is being set aside for a caribou recovery program.
Comments
Well, guaranteed there will be some whiners out there bucking this!
I think it is good, but I also believe it is vote buying…all of a sudden after 3 1.2 years of claiming they are broke the government has money
“vote buying”? since when do the BC Liberals need to buy votes in Northern BC?
Since the economy, and jobs opportunities, have tanked in Northern BC!
I wonder how many for shenanigans she will be caught up in before the election.
two, so far that we know of..
extra pay from the party
and now possible conflict of interest with the pipeline…
wonder how much more she could be involved in that we will never know about.
The issue isn’t that there is all of a sudden huge amounts of money to hand out. Every political party does that. It’s about the options available to run our province. The conflict of interest because the private enterprise businesses donate to the party is the same as the conflict of interest when the unions dump cash into the NDP coffers. Let he without sin cast the first stone.
God help us if the NDP gets back in. They will run this province straight back into the ground.
The province was in the ground?
Well, guaranteed there will be some sheep out there applauding this.
…..and some sheep not applauding this …. sheep come in different colours, both white and black.
There is an old German saying played with children while driving along the highway.
“Schäfchen zur Linken lassen das Glück dir winken. Schäfchen zur Rechten bringen alles zum Schlechten ”
Rough translation = “Sheep on the left bring good luck. Sheep on the right bring bad luck.”
Of course, that saying can also be looked at as having political overtones if one is so inclined. ;-)
First of all, awful picture! Lol.
Secondly, while I will vote for the BC Liberals in the upcoming election, I do not support the WIDC. Complete waste of money.
That is to be seen. I do agree, however, that the building is in the wrong location. It belongs on the UNBC campus as the beginning of a research park.
Somehow a bad virus started in this city when the UNBC was built on the hill instead of the confines closer to the centre of the city. Ever since, the “City Fathers and Mothers” have been pushing to house UNBC and CNC students downtown instead of on or adjacent to their respective campuses in addition to other post secondary services in downtown.
Our post secondary institutions and the city are not large enough to warrant such a separation. Greatly inefficient!!!
I agree gus. This should be up at UNBC.
How cynical we have become, myself included. Doesn’t matter what a politician says or does they aren’t trusted or what’s the real reason for what they say/do….
Why are we like this…because time and time again we have been lied to by politicians.. they brought it on themselves them stand in wonder why it is like this…
Because our electoral system is a popularity contest. Every other senior management job in the world involves an interview where you list your experience, qualifications, etc., and a committee likely makes the decision.
In this system, whoever has the most charisma wins. On paper, Harper should’ve hammered Trudeau – but face it, the guy was dull, and he did necessary but unpopular things. Trudeau, fresh, charismatic, and does popular but unnecessary things.
And then there’s the extensive background investigations by the media when you run for office. Many competent people refuse to run because somewhere in their past is something they’d rather keep there, but once in the public eye, everything is fair game, so why bother.
Hence, we vote in mediocrity based on popularity.
Trump is an enigma. He’s been such a pig for so long his past doesn’t work against him. But again, charismatic Trump vs dull Hillary.
The only thing you got right about Harper is that he was dull, in more ways than one.
Another day, another photo-op of the BC Liberals handing out taxpayer funds. Investments in Universities do not need the Premier to fly at a cost of a few thousand dollars to be seen as some type of “benefactor”.
We spend years hearing all about austerity so that the Libs can balance the budget (on property transfer tax, raiding ICBC and BC Hydro, and MSP premiums) while the ethical lapses keep piling up, operatives being convicted, disciplined, forced to resign or fired for breaking the law. Christy herself has a hard time telling the truth and then we have the BC Hydro Site C that will cost all of us billions and billions without proving that we need the power at all. Be glad to see the end of this government.
And yet BC continues to be an economic leader. Amazing, huh?
Well the USA owes trillions and there dollar is still very high… how’s that work..
The more I owe my “score” doesn’t get better… but I guess in politics real math is useless…
Well you can look to other provinces like Ontario or Alberta and be thankful we live here.
Amazing if you mean that being the “economic leader” also means the highest child poverty rate, highest use of food banks, only province to charge MSP and increasing provincial debt. Giving corporations a break on Hydro – we’ll be paying Woodfibre LNG to take our natural gas – but not seniors or those on low incomes (the government fought giving them a break). Outside the lower mainland and Vancouver Island unemployment is increasing and the north is losing residents.
Demand drives the market and it has little to do with the government. The Liberals only create jobs when the government hires contractors or civil servants so you and she should quit patting her on the back for nothing.
You seem to forget that the last two ndp premiers elected to office in a general election both resigned their office in disgrace………and then there is Moe but don’t have time to list the greasy things he was involved in.
4 more years of balanced budgets and staying at the head of the pack. CC & Co.2017!
Dippers found any ballot fillers for the local ridings yet or have they given up?
Balanced budget and yet debt has increased almost $20B since CC took office. How does that work?
to funny. Dipper imo . are the cc companies getting FREE HYDRO off the backs of tax payers.
Budgets and debts are two completely different things! Check it out!
As I know that dippers are not that good with numbers I will explain it in a way that even they should be able to understand, by comparing it to how the average person runs their household.
Most people do not pay for big ticket items in cash but spread the payments over a number of years. If your income is sufficient to cover all your annual expenses including the house and car payments then you have a balanced budget. If you have money left over then you are in surplus and are in deficit if your obligations are more than your income.
Now substitute road, bridges and even a new WDIC building for house or car and you will see how a provincial budget works. As long as the province remains on sound financial footing then investing in the infastructure is the right thing to do. A healthy economy ensures that the coffers can handle the high dollar items that are amortized over a number of years.
“……BC Liberals handing out taxpayer funds”.
And here I thought that is the way it works. We put a Government in place to do things the private industry does not do, things which some of us have asked for and some of us think are the right things to do ….. rather than voting with our feet by going elsewhere to “shop” we get to vote to kick them out and someone else in, thus putting the shoe on the other foot.
It is impossible to satisfy 100% of the people. It is the nature of the beast.
Do you have an alternative suggestion? Perhaps we should have “president” position in Canada such as the USA has …. LOL
yeah right, with election year, a lot of money is going to fall our way.
And I am happy, the whiners did come out. Does not matter what party is elected, there will always be the popcorn gallery. Really though, politicians are the bane of society, NDP the worst though!
Speaking of whiners.
Stirring the pot there slim, I don’t really care one way or the other. What will be will be, simple!
So….what exactly is proposed to go in this building ?
That is what I want to know. It looks like that part of town is going to end up like Victoria St. A bunch of office buildings which serve no purpose to bring people to the downtown to shop and be entertained.
Large cities learned the lesson of single land uses some 40 years ago and started to go back to building commercial spaces on the ground floor at a minimum, as we used to have in the Oxford building until the feds were allowed to take over the bottom floor, put in reflective glass and killing the draw to other users of the downtown.
I thought the WIDC building was full of government employees? How does dumping 4.5 million on another building help us? We have enough people sucking on the taxpayer’s teat already, we don’t need more.
Finally as we get to the end of the posts we see two (Digitus Impudicus and axman)
that show that they have actually read the story, and then ask some pertinent questions.
A. What exactly is proposed to go in this building.??
B. How does dumping $4.5 million on another building help us.??
Does anyone know what exactly is in the WIDC building. I’s guessing at a minimum it is half empty.
What programs are being offered by WIDC.??
With UNBC flat lining with enrolments, and thinking of leasing out some space to a private school for foreign students so they can generate some funds, and with the University basically broke, you would think that the Government would increase their funding rather than build a useless building.
So announce the amount of money being given, however do not give out any specifics.
Perhaps we should talk LNG. Ooops forgot that was the topic for the last election.
This is politics pure and simple .
It is reported the addition to the building is required for increased open space students require for larger projects.
What students.???
Agree…… both the province and the City do not report out what the current building and the proposed building will be used for.
Will there be a third and a fourth building?
How about building the building on a third floor level over the so-called park to the west of the WIDIC. That is not a park, it is supposed to be a transit hub. Transit hubs make lousy parks. In larger cities that is what they do.
Can we please have someone do a bit of a master plan for that area?
Oh, I forgot, we have no City Planning position!!! It shows.
There ya go !! If the city cancelled its “no planning dept” and its “no communication dept” the city could easily save a couple million a year.
gopg2015 and Digitus Impudicus, what’s really sad about both of your comments is the fact that there is far more truth to what you’ve said that some might want to admit!
Christy can not be trusted and she has proved this many times over. IMO if her lips are moving there is a good chance that she is not telling the truth and that smile gives her away all the time.
Hmmm, Justin seems to smile an awful lot!
Well, except for when he’ll be defending himself in front of both the Ethics Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner!
Gee, cliche time. Shows you have nothing better to say.
They announced in July 2015 that the new students would start in this building in the fall of 2016. They were unclear at the time as to how many students there would be, nor could they state how many faculty there would be and where they might come from.
So, it would be nice to know some facts as to how this project is progressing, rather than vague references, and statements that are intended to lead you to believe something of import is taking place.
It was also announced then that the BC Forest Service would take up some of the space in the building. Not sure if that happened.
Exactly!!!! Lots of announcements and no proof.
This is still the time of year that one can go there at just after 4pm and see where lights are still on. Go into the pool at the Ramada and one can get a look into the building to see if there are bodies inside … :-)
Or do a count of people going in and out between 8am and 10 am. Park a car for 2 hours and take a record with a dash cam.
We need some investigative reporting since no one will tell us.
If this is to be built, I hope the design looks better than the WDIC building. If this is the best they can do to show case building with wood, the design committee needs a revamp. When I first saw the building, I assumed it was still under construction. What a waste of a rare opportunity. I hope the interior, which was locked when I was there, exceeds the box, burnt wood exterior.
I love the interior. A proper use of laminated timber and cross laminated panels. The wood on the outside is an experiment gone wrong. I predict it will be replace within 5 years. Hopefully on the earlier side of that.
$5million gets a building more closely approximating the size of building the BCGEU now occupies. In fact, a building that size could be built with stick built wood.
Who knows, maybe we will get someone to build a building like the Marriott using stick built panels and ship them from Penticton … or better still from Alberta and then stucco on the outside.
The WDIC was Pat’s dream house that he talked about for 8-10 yrs so they had to build it no matter what the cost was. Maybe the exterior is pre-burned so it will not catch fire as easy.
charredwood.com will tell you the background about charred wood.
I think the wood was brushed too hard and there is more and more red showing through.
The thing with such “natural” treatments one cannot really call it a failure because the argument of the specifying architect will be that is the way it is supposed to be. There is no such thing as a perfect piece of wood, leather, marble, brick, etc.
I just noticed Christy has her hand held out and she looks serious. I can’t lip read but is it possible she is saying, OK hand over the cheque?
Watching this announcement on TV showed Christy as being a little worried that someone might ask her a question. As it turned out they did not. Phhhhheww.
Don’t kid yourself. Christy Clark has been in the game long enough that a few questions wouldn’t bother her. Nice fantasy though.
In my opinion, the demand for this extra building space has not been demonstrated, but then again the need for Site C has never been demonstrated, or the Airport’s International arrival-departures lounge and customs offices… yet they were, or are being, built anyway!
Unless they can show us compelling evidence that there is a demand for that extra office space, this is just a waste of tax payer’s money… besides why create additional new office space in a downtown that already has an unacceptably high vacancy rate? More Liberal logic coming our way.
This is what the building will be used for. HERE IT IS: checked out a couple of other news sites.
“The BC Government is investing more funding into the softwood lumber industry for the Northern region.”
Premier Christy Clark has announced $4.5 million will be going towards a new wood innovation research lab at the University of Northern BC (UNBC), accelerating the future of timber engineering and development.”
“the investment is a joint partnership with Federal Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development ”
haha can’t believe she even mentioned Trump if one of the tweets is true. “Premier says “Trump is a builder,” will need BC softwood to build residential housing, etc. #CityofPG #ResourceForum
There is a total of 4 students in the WIDC programs. They have so screwed up the design of the program that the initial WIDC space doesn’t suit their needs. At present there is a facility being built at UNBC to house some of the required projects the students have to do and now we are building another building !
Various government agencies have been forced into the WIDC to fill the empty office spaces.
In general the building is a big white elephant with the government scrambling to fill it so that it appears to have been a good decision.
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