Anyone think that Popolou will say it is a waste of time trying to change the economy of PG by making a logostics park available and attending the Cargo Summit?

Does the Federal government have any money left to come up with their 1/3 share of the cost for Boundary Road? Seems pretty quiet out there...

China is in big trouble right now financially. I can not see things moving at this time but I could be wrong. I hope that they make this project work, it will be good for PG.

It is going to take a while for the world sort things out. Would we be in the lead when it does come around. We will find out I suppose.

If it's been developed by IPG and the YXS Airport Authority you can be sure it will be a failure. The same geniuses who swore up and down that Horizon Air and a massive landing strip would bring prosperity.

is pulp and lumber going to be hauled up the hill to the park and then organized or reoraganized into lots of some sort and then loaded on to large cargo planes that have landed on the extended runway and then flown somewhere?

Yep, if we believed all you naysayers, whose vision does not go past the pub or the casinos, we still would not have a university or become the center for northern BC in health care, or the future cancer clinic.

Its so easy to point fingers, when one does nothing but complain. Your all just a bunch of whinney spoiled kids.

What a pile of crap you speak, He speaks. Naysayers are merely looking at the grim reality of multiple millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on pie-in-the-sky political egos and dreams while their city crumbles around them.

You really expect anybody to believe that the largest city in the entire top two-thirds of British Columbia would not be the "center for northern BC health care", just by virtue of logistics without any political interference, grand-standing or BS? Nice try. Ditto for the university. Geography and population built these centers, not Colin Kinsley's multiple trips to China or Tim McEwan's monthly load of candy-coated crap reports to Council.

I can almost guarantee that most of the intelligent skeptics on this site are looking WELL past the "pub or the casino", despite your ignorant comments to the contrary. It's people like you that tend to just bend over and take it from the politicians, instead of "pointing fingers and complaining", that gives them the political will and hubris to think they can do whatever they want with our money.

(Unless of course, you are a local politician, in which case your comments would make sense).

I am a naysayer, and I don't go to the pub (drink at home, it's cheaper!)or the casino
(being in business is a daily gamble, and who needs to give their profits to Mr. J. Major and the government?) If by center for Northern BC health care you are referring to waiting for years for elective surgery, months to see a specialist who may not even practice here, and maybe can't even find a family doctor to take you on, then I guess I am relly a naysayer. I prefer to think of myself as an optimistic realist.
metalman.

"...we still would not have a university or become the center for northern BC in health care, or the future cancer clinic."

Well said! Don't forget the Prince Rupert container port! The UNBC university act was passed by the Socreds (Bill VanderZalm) just before they lost the election!

Politics do play a big part in all those initiatives and decisions, as a matter of fact.

The University was a huge success. Kamloops did not have a university when UNBC was built and still had to make due with a Community College convert when they did get one. Im not going to get to excited about the cancer clinic. All other things being equal Docs (or any professionals) are not going to choose PG over other major centers when it comes to a place to spend there 30 to 40 working years. Staffing is going to be a major problem if they ever get the thing built. That being said these arent businesses. These are examples of convincing governments to spend here. Not convincing businesses to invest here. Examples of the latter are very hard to come by.

"Not convincing businesses to invest here. Examples of the latter are very hard to come by. "

Not entirely. The government can provide infrastructure funding. The City can rezone land for industrial/business use. Tax allowances (tax holidays) can be made by various governments. Outright cash grants are often made to businesses (corporations) to convince them to locate in a certain area. Vehicle manufacturers (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, etc) usually are motivated in their final decision where to expand or build new manufacturing plants based on some or all of the above factors.

Furthermore, if overall government attitudes and actions are business friendly and eased along by the least amount of red tape a lot of convincing can lead to a lot of investment that could have otherwise gone elsewhere.

Most people on this site have no idea what is involved in a logistics park, and what is required to get it going.

(1) Air Cargo is the most expensive way to ship any commodity. It is at best cost prohibitive.

(2) There is a limited amount of business world wide for Air Cargo.

(3) There is nothing in Prince George at this time that would be shipped anywhere by Air Cargo, on a continuing basis.

(4) Almost all of the Air Cargo from South East Asia goes through Anchorage Alaska. All the major Airlines have Warehouse and Distribution Centres in Anchorage to handle this traffic.

(5) Anchorage Airport handles 700 Wide Body Cargo jets per week. Major Airlines have facilities in Anchorage to house their pilots who fly from the Continental US to Anchorage and then on to Asia and reverse. Contrary to popular opinion these pilots do get off the planes, and do live in Anchorage, the US, or South East Asia. They do not fly New York to Anchorage, to Tokyo, to Anchorage, to New York non stop. One airline recently announced that it had leased 65 Hotel rooms on a year round basis for its pilots.

(6) No Airline who had a successful business routing traffic through Anchorage would set up a duplicate business in Prince George to handle the same traffic. That idea in beyond beleif. As a matter of fact when this idea was first mentioned a few years ago, Fed Ex stated that it had no intentions of locating a terminal in Prince George.

(7) Calgary Airport approached the Major airlines a number of years ago to try and get them to route some traffic through Calgary, however they were not successful.

(8) The nearest alternative Airport to Prince George is Calgary,. Edmonton, Vancouver, while the nearest to Anchorage is Fairbanks, and Elmendorf airforce base.
You need to have an alternative in case the Airport is closed for some reason, the farther away the alternative is, the more fuel you have to have on board, which means less cargo.

(9) During the eruption of the Redoubt Volcano in Alaska last week, airlines were informed that Prince George was available, however they chose to land at Fairbanks and Elmendorf.

(10) Steig Hoig the ex Airport Manager admitted on the Meisner show some time ago that Prince George cannot compete with Anchorage on traffic flying from the Continental US to South East Asia because then you have to fly into the Jet Stream going West and this means you burn more fuel. More fuel means less Cargo. So we could only try and get business from Airlines flying East. This limits the amount of business available, for both cargo and fueling.

(11) The cost of Jet Fuel in Prince George is more expensive than in Anchorage, therefore there is no advantage in refueling in Prince George going West., and only minimal savings going East.

(12) The overall savings by routing through Prince George would never be enough to encourage any major airline to change the way it is doing business.

(13) Jet Fuel for Prince George has to be shipped from Edmonton Alta and this is one reason why it is so expensive. Anchorage Airport has 2 sources in Alaska that they get fuel from and they also ship in fuel by ship from Seattle, so in essence they have 3 sources of supply.

(14) Contrary to popular opinion Anchorage Airport is not congested,and when and if Air Cargo should increase, they would build additional runways to handle the business, rather than lose it to Prince George.

(15) The airline business like any other is run on the economies of scale., Anchorage has 700 Wide Body Cargo jets per week which reduces their costs. Prince George on the other hand is hoping to have something in the area of 21 flights per week (refueling) and therefore their costs will be significanly higher, per plane.

(16) There is absolutely nothing that has been said, or done, that would indicate that that this runway expansion will ever make any money, or create any significant jobs. There has not been one commitment from any airline to date. The Aiport Managers admit that they have heard nothing from any Airport since last October.

(17) The grand opening of the Runway was attended by those politicians, and airport managers that are responsible for this fiasco, and no one else. It was very low key, because they couldnt even get a cargo jet to land for publicity purposes.

(18) This whole scheme was set up because of the politicians wanting to be seen to be doing something, the Airport wanting to have a project that would ensure that they could collect Airport Improvement Fees for the next 25 years, and it was also used to get certain lands out of the ALR, which now can be used to build an Industrial Park, that in my opinion will have very little to do with the Airport, and a lot to do with the Highway 16 to 97 cut-off.

Have a nice day.

Amazing synopsis, Palopu.

Thanks very much for taking the time to lay out a reality that almost nobody can argue with...even the buddy's of Colin Kinsley and Tim McEwan who like to come on here and chirp about us "naysayers" with all our pub and gambling addictions!

This reminds me of the idea of opening a research park in UNBC next to the teaching building and they even went as far as calling it Silicon Valley North.

Later when no company from silicon valley invested in their dream project, they ran short of cash to build the buildings, and they downsized and eliminated the silicon valley part of project and it cost them more per square feet to build the alternative smaller teaching building and they poured the money which was given to UNBC for expansion of specific programs into building half empty buildings.

If 15 years ego instead of building
UNBC, CNC was allowed to expand into a university-college, like in Kamloops,
the situation would have been much
better. Now both CNC and UNBC are in
red and struggling. It is amazing how BC government wastes money into these dream
go-no-where projects like Jago sport center and neglects dealing with homelessness and gang issues.