Yeah, the trip was a success for McEwan. He got to see more of the far east on our dime and drink & eat fine food while partying with Chinese cargo officials on our dime.

Meanwhile, just trot out the old mantra "It will work; just give it time". Right. Just like Horizon Air, that was the same line you used for that well conceived notion.

I gotta get me a job at IPG so long as the City of Prine George continues to be run by rubes with no business savvy. You can collect your fat salary and be wrong as often as you want with no apparent job repercussions, kinda like being a weatherman. When one project fails, you just draw a few more artist's conceptions of some pie-in-the-sky project, hop on the plane to China and pour millions into another white elephant.

Can't wait to see what it's going to be after the Airport Expansion -- hey, maybe a chopstick factory right here in PG!!! Oh wait...

"The team from IPG and the Airport was the only group fro North America to attend the conference “We made a major impression and we have several leads to follow.” McEwan says the message they delivered was clear, “Prince George is open for business”."

Very positive, indeed! At least the focus was entirely on Prince George's new facilities!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Keep up the good work! It will pay off in the long run!

Hey diplomat, can you please share your kool-aid with the rest of us? You got half that slogan correct anyway, the "nothing gained" part. There's been TONS ventured though...all TAXPAYER MONEY!

If you like the idea so much, perhaps you'd be willing to donate 10% of your salary towards the marketing bill? The way heavily-padded government contracts work, that quarter-million that the feds just announced will only buy us a couple of brochures. They'll need more money soon, so by all means please donate to the cause.

After all the years of these trips to China what have we actually gained?

China is one of the countries in big trouble financialy right now. I do not see them expanding for a while. It would be interesting to see the bill though. Wonder how much this trip cost US who stayed behind struggling to pay our 8% tax increase along with every thing else.

I be thinking a general strike is in order.

We've had enough and aren't going to take it any longer.
Trumpets sounding in the background, pitchforks and torches being pulled out of closets, balaclava's donned. Charge!!!

What was I thinking. This is Canada and we are civilized here. Shame on me for thinking Canadians could ever think of standing up to the overseers in this country.
Excuse me while I go bend over.

The most common position for everyday Canadians.

Diplomat is right on the money. The rest of you and your comments couldn't have a bright thought if you swallowed a light bulb.
How about coming up with your own brilliant ideas, and take them forth.

Another poster who's nothing but ballsy with the public purse. How about you put your own money up for all of these "bright" ideas? Willing to bet your entire future on cargo planes making this city the next Chicago?

Yeah, I thought not...now go back to your well-paid job writing flowery press releases for IPG and the Northern Trust.

Some trips to China don"t even have to be explained, at least these guys told us how many meetings they had.The mayor in Mackenzie B.C. went to China not to long after most of the people in town were laid off,then said in the local Times newspaper that "It was a worthwhile trip" but nobody knows what was accomplished. And these people wonder why they are not trusted.

The comments we have deleted are exactly what we cautioned you about last week. If you have nothing to do, and it seems some of you don’t , get a crayon and some paper.
If you can’t comment on the subject in a reasonable fashion, then there will be some more cuts coming.

Tombstone, the thing has been built, meaning the airport expansion. It's too late and quite useless to be negative. The best course of action is to actively promote it and attract the businesses that will come eventually, better sooner than later.

I volunteer to take my kool-aid along on any trip if I get invited to participate in positive promotions of P.G. and its latest attraction: the airport expansion and planned logistics park.

I remember when naysayers were insisting that Prince George would never have a university - of course they were wrong.

In many businesses one has to do at least 10 proposals to land one. It is called an investment in getting a job, project, client, or whatever. It is part of the cost of doing business.

Operating a City these days is operating a business. So is operating an airport.

One of the major difference between a government operation and a private operation is that a lot of information is made available to the general public about the business of a public organization.

XYZ fFurnace Manufacturing LTD. does not divulge how many time they wine and dine a potential large distributor or how often they go to foreign countries to see how their competitors operate.

You will, however, be paying them for exactly that part of their normal operations just as you are in the case of IPG. It will happen when you buy their product or any other product because that is exactly what they all do.

You do not do it, you might as well close your door as XYZ Furnace Manufacturing LTD, or as the airport, or the City, or whateve rother enerprise that is in competition.

If you do not like the way the business is being run, talk to the people who are at or near the top. Bring serious concerns and they will listen. Bring serious suggestions for improvements, they will listen.

Bring half baked opinions, they will smile and nod, and then turn around and continue to keep busy trying to do a thankless job.

Is there room for improvement? Yes! But, like Diplomat, be diplomatic in how you present it.

I'm puzzled. What does this mean?

Quote:

The team travelled to the conference with a plan to sell the idea of having companies buy into the airport logistics lands that are for development. “We are pushing as hard as we can, and it will bear fruit there is no question, we just have to be patient.


The IPG team went to China to sell "airport logistics lands"? Pushing as hard as they can, to have foreign ownership of the Prince George airport lands?

Say it isn't so.

.

Corporations as well as people from different Nations own property in Canada and have for a long time just as Canadians own land in other countries.

Think of all the snowbirds who have actually bought real estatee in the USA. How about Canadian businesses? Just as there are US forestry companies that own factories and the land they sit on in Canada, Canadian forest companies have land and facility investments in the USA.

Cadillac Fairview, for instance, expanded into the USA in 1975. Since then the ownership has gone to USA investors and then back to Canada with current ownership being Canadian. Today it has a large portfolio of investments both in Canada and the US.

Fairmont hotels, orignally CP owned, is now owned by Saudi nationals.

The local situation looks like they are being courted to buy land and build a business facility on it. Depending how large it is, China allows that to happen there as well. They do have restrictions on buying successful and large Chinese companies.

(1) Cost of the Airport Runway Expansion $33 Million dollars.

(2)Cost of the CN Intermodal Container Terminal. $20 Million dollars.

(3)Proposed cost of the connector road from Highway 16 to Highway 97 to service the proposed Industrial Park West of the Airport $48 Million.

Total cost to date including item (3) is $101 Million of which at least $55 Million will be taxpayers dollars.

Benefits to date??? Some construction jobs building the projects, then ZILCH.

Will these projects bear fruit in the future. Very, very, unlikely. I suspect that the Runway will never be used to any great degree. The CN Terminal has been operating in the red since it opened over a year ago. They have sold off the majority of their chassis, and reduced their staff from 11 to 5. I predict that they will sell this **White Elephant** within the next couple of years.

The Industrial park West of the Airport will be built with half of the funding for the road coming from taxpayers, and then they will attract business from the Carter Light Industrial Park, River Road, BC/CN Rail Industrial Park, and at the end of the day we will not have anymore business in Prince George than we did when we started. It called churning.

And that is the crux of the situation. All else is hyperbole

The world can not and will not be in this global recession for a long time. The upper echelon knows that the longer it lasts the greater becomes the possible danger of rioting and anarchy.

It will be brought to its knees with vast amounts of taxpayer money for which future generations will be on the hook for.

Everybody in the world (especially in the yet underdeveloped world) wants and demands a better standard of living and stuff to support it, lots of stuff of all kind.

That requires a lot of resources (raw materials) and manufacturing, trading and transportation of finished goods in all directions and by efficient means.

The world's population is not shrinking, it is still growing and so are the needs for stuff to support it.

As soon as this global problem brought on by financial greed and ponzi schemes has been brought under control things will begin to heat up again and P.G. will be in a pretty good position.

Gotta stay positive and have some confidence in the future! The future will come one way or the other and we might as well have some faith in it and expect some good things to come our way!

There is an expression that says that the future will shape up to one's expectations and if one sets one's expectation too low, that is what one will get.

All these trips to China and what have we gained? Look around ya, pal. Lotsa Dollar Stores. That's what. Real good stuff there, too. Lead, melamine, questionable foodstuffs. A whole new worldly adventure in purchasing.

Diplomat. I agree that Prince George is in a good position to deal with the increases in population and peoples needs in the future. We have been in this position for the past 100 years. The Port of Prince Rupert, and the Ports in Vancouver are over 100 years old. The Airport has been around since the early 1900 hundreds. The railway has been here for 100 years, and some of our highways almost as long. We used to have paddle wheelers on the Fraser River hauling Freight.

We can continue to supply all the mining, pulp and paper, lumber, to the world for years to come using those same facilities that we have always used, and we will continue to do a good job.

My point is that we will continue to do this without the Airport Expansion, and without the CN Intermodal Terminal because these projects are not logistically viable.

When you use the Port of Prince Rupert for Containers, at this point in time you are restricted to China/East Asia only. If you use the Port of Vancouver you can ship anywhere in the world.

The idea of a Cargo distribution Centre at the Airport is a long shot at best. Why would you bring things from around the World to a remote place like Prince George, and then resend them to the populated areas in Eastern Canada, or the USA. Common sense tells you that you would move them from Origin to, or as close to your market area as possible.

The talk of Free Trade Zones is more spin than fact. There is only one Free Trade Zone in Canada, and it is somewhere in New Brunswick and is a less than stellar operation. Once again Free Trade Zones around the world are built as close as possible to their market area to reduce transportation costs etc;

Transportation costs on all products,either by truck, rail, or Air from or too Prince George are very expensive. The chances of gettng cheap transportation out of this area is next to nil.