I hope these exciting times actually produce some "ordinary jobs". By that, I mean jobs for someone in their later 40's who has lost his job in the forest sector - probably doesn't have grade 12 or any special tickets because they have worked in the mill for the last 25 yrs. but is perfectly capable of operating machinery, and working hard. Almost impossible to find these ordinary jobs that pay enough to support yourself and family. There are some people out there that are just not cut out for book learning so getting grade 12 and college educ is probably not something they can do.

"Almost impossible to find these ordinary jobs that pay enough to support yourself and family"

Yes it is and it's only going to get worse IMHO. It's even more reason why we need to support initiatives that inject some innovation into our economy. We need to be at the forefront of technological change, we need to invest more into R&D and we need to invest in education so that we have a workforce that is ready to work in the future economy, make good wages and pay the taxes that will be required to support all of the current 50 year olds who will be out of the workforce in 10-15 years.

Times are indeed a changing and while building mines and dams can certainly fill a short-term void for us (and I expect they will offer lots of good jobs for the people you describe), I simply don't envision them as a viable long-term solution for our economy. We're great at doing the "same old same old", but not so great at creating the "next thing". I think there is more stablility and prosperity with the latter.

Of course he is excited. Gordo is handing over the environment on a silver platter.

Flood the peace, turn over the forests to the licensees, and dig up the rest.

"I hope these exciting times actually produce some "ordinary jobs". By that, I mean jobs for someone in their later 40's who has lost his job in the forest sector - probably doesn't have grade 12 or any special tickets because they have worked in the mill for the last 25 yrs. "

Um, those jobs existed in the 70's, but not anymore. This is 2010, and the people who had (have) the initiative to further their professional development will get preference over someone who pushed a broom or flipped boards for 20 years. People with no credentials can't realistically expect to make what they might have made in the forest sector.

Mr PG, you may be correct on the fact that better educated people will be employed more often. However, we still need the grunts to keep our world moving. We still need people on Mexican teaspoon, we still need the people to do low skilled manual labour. We still need responsible people operating machinery that takes work away from manual labour. We still need skilled tradesman.

Yes, 4 billion dollars will mean at least 2 billion dollars worth of labour. That is about 25,000 person years of work. Thats just to build it. If it took three years to build it, that would mean about 8000 jobs in construction for the north.

The catch is, Will there be enough skilled workers to service this demand. Likely not. But it will be no excuse for any person worth their salt not to be working for long. We just need a means to connect opportunity with workers.

Now lets talk 5 new mines each employing 200 workers. That is 1000 new full time work, year in and year out. The ripple effect is 2500 jobs as the residual. Probably 120 million dollars worth of wages plowed into the northern economy.

On the tax end, we are talking huge amounts of money that is going to hit the Provincial and Federal coffers. The operation of the mines will pay taxes, the service people of the mines pay taxes, the workers pay taxes, the service industry of the workers spending money will pay taxes.
Those 5 new mines will likely get 300 -400 million dollars running through the Fed and Provincial coffers, year in year out.

We are just simply a cog in the system. We work, we get paid, and we all hope that our final days, we live comfortably. No one person can justifiably say that I am better than you. We all have to learn to live with everyone and be civil about it. Don't get on your high horse to think that piece of paper on the wall makes you better than the man who works by the sweat of his brow to support his family.

"Mr PG, you may be correct on the fact that better educated people will be employed more often. However, we still need the grunts to keep our world moving."

Absolutely. My point is that if those people were expecting to make what they were making in the pulp mill, they will be for the most part disappointed.

MrPG so pulp mill workers are just grunts?

I never used the term 'grunt', but I guess the term applies to unskilled/uneducated labour. I didn't invent it, so what was your point exactly?

While we are talking about training and education ---- how much education did Ben Ginter have, for those of you old enough to remember.

Oldun, I'm guessing your point is 'not much'. You didn't need much in the old days. However, this is 2010. Nowadays, you're only helping yourself if you have some sort of accreditation.