build it they will come????

Eventually, may be should do a cookie sale at the fuel reload.

I'm still very surprised that $36M of taxpayer money was spent on a project where there were no firm commitments beforehand.

You would think as part of basic due diligence, the business plan would include a few carriers committed (and signed) to stopping once the project is complete, but what do I know? I'm just another empty-pocketed taxpayer.

Very rarely does any business have guaranteed orders before they open for business. Business is about risks.

This has more to do with government involvment in businesses than anything else. Government has proven time and time again that they connot efficiently operate businesses. A quasi government entity such as the airport authority cannot be expected to do much better.

Exactly my point, BC. Private money can take all the risks it wants, but when it comes to public funds, more prudence should be exercised. This is not a small amout of money we're talking about here, and I don't think it's appropriate to gamble with taxpayer dollars.

One thing is for certain. If it wasn't built we would not get anyone here. The airport authority couldn't have known about the meltdown of the global economy when they planned this expansion. In my opinion things like this are a lot better to spend money on than the two week money pit called the Olympics.

"Private money can take all the risks it wants, but when it comes to public funds, more prudence should be exercised"

Prudence was exercised. The project had to be approved by the Province and the Feds before it got the dough to begin construction. Obviously people at both those levels of government reviewed the project and thought the risk was a reasonable one to take given the potential, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are. Despite what many people think, 36 million dollars doesn't just get handed out on a whim.

I like the business case though. Charge nothing for the planes to land here and some how magically all the repairs and maintenance will be covered. Giving it away for free and we still can't attract a plane to land here.

"Giving it away for free and we still can't attract a plane to land here."

Those who are supposedly in the know when they post their comments on here seem to forget pretty quickly.

A runway by itself does nothing, other than it could provide an emergency landing strip for larger planes.

There is no capacity to handle a 400 seat passenger plane if there was even a desire to land one of those suckers here once a month for tourists to start a tour from here.

There is no capacity for a logistics stop to fuel up, which is the main reason so far that has been suggested why someone might want to land here. This article deals with closing that capacity gap.

There are no warehouses, modal transportation hubs, duty free areas, and other such facilities at the airport to give any carry any other reason to land here on a regular basis. The opportunity to build such facilities will come once the light industrial lands at the airport are subdivided and services, with the possibility of a leg of an imporved by pass from Hwy 16 East to Hwy 97 being built.

Irrespective of the economic conditions of Canada, North America, and the world, the capacity conditions here are not in place to provide any reason for anyone to land.

It seems in this case, and maybe in a lot of cases, one had to procede in sequence rather than in parallel. In other words, show me that the runway is real, and we will develop an industrial park to take advantage of its presence.

Enough with the common sense gus, you are giving me a headache :)

All I know is that other jurisdictions (e.g. Calgary) have looked at doing the same thing and couldn't make the business case work.

So maybe 'someday' it will all work out... time will tell.

The Federal and Provincial Governments put money into this project for Political reasons. Not because the Business Plan showed that it was a viable operation.

Has anyone ever seen the ***Business Plan***

The money given was more about possible elections than business sense.

The $11 Million that the Airport Authority borrowed from the Northern Trust Initiative, which was money from the sale of the BC Rail will never be paid back, because the Airport Authority is broke.

Even if we could get some Cargo Jets to land for tech stops, we would make very little money. The Oil Company selling the fuel will make some, however the Airport Authority would only get a landing and take off fee, that would be in the area of $1400.00 per wide body cargo jet.

There will never be any infrastructure built at the so called light industrial lands at the Airport that would work in conjunction with this Airport, mainly because we are not located in the right place in North America for any duty free, or distribution centres.

These are already available in Anchorage, and of course in other Major Citys in the USA and Eastern Canada. You would never set up this type of a business so far away from your markets. Ie; Eastern Canada, and the Continental USA.

This was, and is nothing more than a pipe dream. Like most infrastructure projects in Prince George, it is being built while the area is in a huge decline. Population wise, and otherwise.

We can be assured of one thing. The $15.00 Airport Improvement Fee on air fares ex Prince George will stay in effect for years to come, to pay for this fiasco. In fact it might even be increased to $20.00 .

This is about all your going to get for your money.

We are building for a future that probably does not exist. We seem to have a number of people who will not face the fact that the population of Prince George has declined over the last 20 years, and business, commercial, and industrial, has also downsized. There is nothing on the drawing board to indicate that this trend of going to change in the short term.


With in excess of 3500 people out of work because of the job losses at North Central Plywood, Winton Global, Rustads, and the layoffs at MacKenzie, and the reduced shifts at other mills, you can expect a lot of people to be leaving Prince George for greener pastures, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Northern BC.

There should be lots of work at Kitimat, and on Highway 37 if things get going, however this will have little bearing on Prince George, as these locations are 400 Miles away, and any distribution etc;, will be done in Terrace.

"We are building for a future that probably does not exist. We seem to have a number of people who will not face the fact that the population of Prince George has declined over the last 20 years, and business, commercial, and industrial, has also downsized. There is nothing on the drawing board to indicate that this trend of going to change in the short term"

Per BC stats, the population of PG 20 years ago (1988) was 69,689. They have the population in 2008 at 74,092. That's not a decline in my eye, but maybe you measuring it differently :) They also have the population peaking at 78,364 in 1997 and dropping to 72,889 in 2006 before increasing to where they show it now.

So the immediate short-term is showing a growing trend but for the most part, I think it's fair to say that the population growth has remainded somewhat stagnant. It's not really increasing in a major way, nor is it is in "huge decline" as you put it.

The more interesting thing in my eye is that the population has remainded somewhat stable even though we have seen decline in our traditional resource industries. To me that suggests that other things are indeed having an impact and making a solid contribution to the local economy. Jobs may be lost in forestry, but they may be partially offset by jobs created in other sectors.

And as for the decline in business over the past 20 years, are you serious? Did you actually ever shop in PG 20 years ago, go out for dinner, partake in entertainment options, etc? Do you honestly think there were more options in 1989? Wow!

One thing for sure, if we didn't pursue this plan, nothing would happen. So, when companies begin to see how they can cut costs shipping by sea, rail or air, we will be on their radar at some point.

Thank goodness somebody has a vision for a future. If businesses didn't have a vision for a future for PG, do you think Walmart, Canadian Tire, Rona, Costco, Presidents Choice, Home Depot, and other big box stores would have ever invested money in our community?

We are an attractive, alternative, affordable city to live in and raise a family in. Who can afford Kelowna, Victoria, Surrey, or most other attractive retirement communities? People will be moving back. New families are already moving here. Friends are moving back from Alberta. The grass isn't greener as one might expect. A few mosquitoes and a little longer winter season. It's not really as bad as people complain about.

I was born here and appreciate how fortunate we are to live in this part of the world. If people quit bellyaching about things and did something to improve things, it would be even better.

Chester; You state who can afford Kelowna, Victoria, Surrey, etc; etc; etc; Well obviously it is the people who live there. Those towns have been growing on a yearly basis for a number of years. (Possible exception is Victoria). Kamloops, and other Cities in the Okanogan continue to grow. Just because we think this is a great place to live, doesnt mean other people feel the same way.

In any event it matters little what we think, because if you do not have jobs for people then they will go somewhere else. This is the problem we face. There are no new jobs being created in Prince George. There is no new industry in the works for Prince George. How are you going to attract people without having work for them.??.

When you have a situation where 3500 people in the area lose their jobs, with little on no chance of those jobs ever coming back, you have a serious situation. These people cannot stay in Prince George on EI, or Welfare, without jobs they will have to move. One family would consist of maybe 4 people, so we could be looking at a population decrease of somewhere in the area of 10,000 to 12,000 people in the next five to ten years.

Canadian Tire has been here for years. Rona bought out Irly Bird. Presidents choice, is Canadian Super Store, which used to be Extra Foods, and Super Value. Costco killed off Kelly Douglas, Malkins, Slade and Stewart, etc; and Home Depot killed off Thunderbird Electric, Timbermart on the Hart, Mcinnis Blding Supplies, and Home Hardware in College Heights. So these so called big box stores thrive on killing off local business, and thats how they make money, however at the end of the day, there is no or little **net gain**.

NMG. Prince George has a huge number of Government workers, ie; Municipal, Regional, Provincial, Federal. In addition we have the Regional Hospital, and the Northern Health Administration. Plus the College and UNBC, plus Police, Fireman, etc; All well paid, and all paid for with tax dollars.

These are the people who can afford the so called entertainment in this town, however entertainment, and dining in a few franchise restaurants doesnt make a City.

In other posts recently I listed over 28 business's in Prince George that have gone out of business in the last 20 years, and this was a short list from the top of my head. Im sure there were many more.

For growth we need to be talking about 5000 to 10,000 jobs in the next 5 to 10 years, however that doesnt seem to be in the cards. The alternative is to continue to shrink.

Once the Governments of the day start to downsize then the situation is really going to get serious.

I was thinking about PG as an affordable place to retire in BC. Old folks run from air conditioned cars to their air conditioned condos in Kelowna. What's the difference in PG when they run from heated condos to heated vehicles? They are still inside. But PG is a lot more affordable. And our summers are a lot more tolerable for old people.

I do agree that for young families to move to PG, they will be coming because of work opportunities. Phone the moving companies and see whether there are more people leaving than coming or ???? They have a pulse on the movement of people to and from our city. We don't need a census.

We are the Hub of the North. The big box stores didn't come here to squash local business, they came because they saw a huge opportunity to serve a vast area of our province in a central location. Spend some time in a parking lot on a long weekend and find out where everyone comes from. You will be astonished how many people come to PG to shop from the outlying communities.

I appreciate the big box stores coming here. I used to pull the seats out of my van and drive to Surrey and Kelowna Cosco and load up on supplies for our business. The savings on one item paid for my gas to drive down.

These big box stores employ lots of people, and I suspect the wages are as good or better than the smaller businesses who couldn't compete. That's life. I have also been a casuality when Diversified Bus came to town and dominated the transportation business.

Palopu wrote:

"Prince George has a huge number of Government workers, ie; Municipal, Regional, Provincial, Federal. In addition we have the Regional Hospital, and the Northern Health Administration. Plus the College and UNBC, plus Police, Fireman, etc; All well paid, and all paid for with tax dollars."

Go to
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/dd/facsheet/facsheet.asp
and download a few of the community fact sheets. You owe yourself a bit of an update of what the other communities in BC look like and compare to PG. You will find out that

1. the other communities have similar numbers of people on payrolls paid for by taxes.

2. The other communities generally have higher property taxes

3. The other communities have a considerably larger % of people employed in construction

4. The three highest percentages of the labour force that each hover around the 10% are forestry harvesting & manufacturing; health; retail

Here are some details:
--------------------------
Average family income 2006 census
Prince George $73,591
Kamloops $67,434
Chilliwack $61,587
Kelowna $61,263
Nanaimo $58,971
-------------------------
Percent of income by employment income
Prince George 75.6%
Kamloops 67.7%
Chilliwack 63.6%
Nanaimo 60.0%
Kelowna 59.3%
--------------------------------
Percent of income by pension income
Nanaimo 18.3%
Chilliwack 16.4%
Kelowna 15.3%
Kamloops 13.6%
Prince George 8.8%
-------------------------------
Percent of income by investment income
Kelowna 12.5%
Nanaimo 8.1%
Kamloops 7.5%
Chilliwack 7.2%
Prince George 5.1%
----------------------------------
Percent income by self-employment
Kelowna 6.0%
Chilliwack 5.7%
Nanaimo 5.5%
Kamloops 4.2%
Prince George 3.6%
-------------------------
Average Dwelling value 2008
Kelowna $457,155
Chilliwack $333,426
Nanaimo $322,569
Kamloops $308,027
Prince George $214,378
-------------------------------
Average property tax
Kelowna $3,517
Kamloops $3,346
Nanaimo $3,023
Prince George $2,777
Chilliwack $2,759
-------------------------------
Percent of workforce in Construction
Kelowna 11.06%
Chilliwack 10.38%
Nanaimo 8.06%
Kamloops 7.66%
Prince George 5.79%
-----------------------------------

From that I take it that we should be doing exactly as Chester says - build PG up and promote it as an alternate retirement community.

Based on the above information, we are a bunch of cheapskates in this community. We have the highest family income of the group, a high participation rate in the workforce, the lowest housing cost of anyone and we have the lowest property tax.

Is it any wonder why the City looks unkempt? We have no community pride. Based on the posters on this site we are a bunch of whiners. And we have a bunch of people who think the place is going to hell in a handbasket.

Well, the more that is the story we have in our head, and the more we tell others about that story who are not from this community, the worse the city gets.

We are our own enemy. It is time that people like Palopu get updated rather than creating opinions based on old information. Start to understand what it takes to support a successful community, and apply that to this community rather than tearing it down.

Cities are businesses. Neither businesses nor people will come here if we do not invest enough in the community. We are the shareholders in this business. Time to make your investment by atr least promoting the city and coming up with practical solutions.

And those who have those higher than average provincial incomes and live in a less expensive than average provincial home and pay one of the lowest provincial rates of property taxes, start investing in this community.