this will create more container traffic for Prince Rupert and the north.

More container traffic in Prince Rupert both incoming and outgoing......excellent idea!!

Now we have to make more than just 2X4's and Oil/Gas.

I keep seeing the streams of Cosco rail cars going by. Those are some very long trains. Have to keep those Walmart's stocked with cheap goods...haha.

The writing is on the wall. If we want to continue having a great economy and make good wages we need to make more things in this country. But when was the last time something like that happened?

Well at least this announcement is one more step in creating more economic activity in Northern BC.

The events with this group were well attended from many sectors including CNC, Lomak Trucking, CN Rail, PG Airport Authority and private investors to name a few. When dealing with these types of delegations it is very important to meet and get to know the individuals as relationships are a critical key to future partnerships and mutual developments. The Logistics Park, and associated developments are now getting worldwide attention and it is imperative that all levels of governments, corporations and businesses work together to promote what will be the biggest economic and developmental opportunities in the history on not only Prince George but the Interior as well.

I with Councillor Green had a number of discussions and exchange of thoughts with many of the delegates regarding the many opportunities not only here but in China as well for business and educational opportunities. The delegates were very impressed with the First Nations traditional food, dancing and singing.

As challenged as I am at times with some Provincial Government initiatives like the HST, Minister Bond and Bell did a great job this weekend of helping to sell the benefits of investing in the Prince George region and letting the delegates know what efforts are being made in China to expand the use of wood and wood products.


Regards Brian Skakun

One has to wonder why you would think it is a shorter distance to China if you go from Prince Rupert, to Vancouver, or the USA and then back to Prince Rupert. Seems to me that would make it further not shorter.

Also all the containers that load from this area, would normally go through the Port of Vancouver, so it is the same products being handled through a different port. It is not new business and it will not create any new economic activity in Northern BC. That is unless you come up with some new manufacturing business.

Palopu
Forget the comings and goings of the ship before it takes on containers going to the Far East....
It is a lot quicker directl to the Far East out of Rupert than any other port. The quicker product gets to the destination, the quicker the shipper gets paid. In this world of time equals money, that is worth a lot....especially over the long hall. Sure it seems insignificant, and maybe it is, but so were Facebook and Craigs List at one time.
The market will make the decision.
Ron J Davis

"The delegates were very impressed with the First Nations traditional food, dancing and singing."

There we go. A prepackaged frozen food traditional First Nations meal to be sold as a delicacy in Asian food markets. Ship it via air from the airport.

Each package can come with a DVD to be played at the same time as the food is served.

There is our new business.
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Palopou. It is COSCO that has already made the change. You are, of course, right with the distance the container ships that take that route will travel. Given that, what it tells me is that the ships are not travelling with a full load of cargo on the return route, which makes a lot of sense given the imbalanced trade the USA and Canada have with China and Asia in general.

It seems COSCO has taken that into account and, for now, has a route that does that. How many of the ships will do that, has not been reported.
-----------------------

As far as getting paid quicker goes, I would hope that given the route is shorter, that the cost will also be less to the shipper.

Also, if the route is shorter, the ship can either go more frequently, which then means that it can carry more cargo, which means the ships and crew become more efficient. BUT, they will have to have more cargo to ship.

If they do, they will also be less demand for new ships, which will impact ship builders in Asia.

Conversely, there will likely be more demand for containers and/or more demand for port and other shipping workers to unpack the containers and get them back into circulation.

There has been a bit of a shift. It will take a while to see what the effect will be. Rest assured, however, it will affect some more than others and it will affect more than most people might think at first glance.

Palupo

"That is unless you come up with some new manufacturing business."

or if you INCREASE your sales to China.

That is what the local thinking is at this point is it not? Canfor, WestFraser, Tolko, Sinclair Group all working to increase sales?

"Also all the containers that load from this area, would normally go through the Port of Vancouver,"

Very naive thought, the vast majority of product shipped from this area go by truck to the Port of Vancouver and are stuffed there. The thought behind this project is the container stuffing can actually happen in Prince George. The product will leave its sellers terminal by truck, proceed to Prince George and get placed in containers here. That is increased jobs. This can include product from Fort Nelson, Fort St John, Grand Prairie, Dawason Creek, Mackenzie, Quesnel, Williams Lake, 100 Mile, Vanderhoof, FS James. Currently this product passes directly through PG with little to no stoppage.

Some negative comments here assume that some business representatives and politicians who attended these meetings are somewhat oblivious to reality if not altogether daft.

Surely they as insiders know better what is going on than outsiders who usually do a lot of guessing and come to conclusions based on insufficient information.

The Chinese representatives of Cosco are shrewed and educated and they look at everything. Their company expects them to be like that.

If we offer them better, more reliable and more cost effective service they know how to take advantage of it and turn a dollar saved here and there into millions of dollars in no time at all.

"Some negative comments here assume that some business representatives and politicians who attended these meetings are somewhat oblivious to reality if not altogether daft."

That, and it seems that some posters have a complete inability to see anything positive in anything. For some, anybody who is in the least bit positive is regarded to as a 'sheeple' or something to that effect. Sad.

The other items of supplies going thru port of Prince Rupert to the state is, the rail traffic is way quicker. Most products end up going through Chicago. Thus a train leaving Prince Rupert will get to Chicago a day and a half faster than a train leaving Vancouver. It has to deal with snaking its way through the lower half of the province. Thus, there are a lot more rail closure issues, the guarantee of 1.5 days is intriguing to shippers.

Brian Skakun:-"As challenged as I am at times with some Provincial Government initiatives like the HST, Minister Bond and Bell did a great job this weekend of helping to sell the benefits of investing in the Prince George region and letting the delegates know what efforts are being made in China to expand the use of wood and wood products."

------------------------------------------
Ah, yes. What the Government giveth, the Government taketh away. Cursed be the name of the Government.

Gus:-"The delegates were very impressed with the First Nations traditional food, dancing and singing."

"There we go. A prepackaged frozen food traditional First Nations meal to be sold as a delicacy in Asian food markets. Ship it via air from the airport.

"Each package can come with a DVD to be played at the same time as the food is served.

"There is our new business."
-------------------------------------------

I think you'd want to do a little more market research before you have our taxpayer's dollars funding any First Nation's frozen food plants, Gus. The Chinese don't like 'frozen food' ~ they want it 'fresh'.

Mr. PG:- "... and it seems that some posters have a complete inability to see anything positive in anything. For some, anybody who is in the least bit positive is regarded to as a 'sheeple' or something to that effect. Sad."
-------------------------------------------
I think many of us would be a whole lot more positive in regards to international 'free' trade if this country were FREE TO trade, our goods for alternate goods. Rather than FORCED TO trade our goods for foreign credit to prop up a defective money system. In such an arrangement, we're always giving more than we're getting.

Interesting.
Seems like more smoke and mirrors to deflect peoples attention form the HST.
Got a letter the other day and I will now pay HST on my leased recreation property.
They went on to say that we will pay HST on anything we now pay GST on.
The odd thing is that I didn't pay GST on my yearly lease payment before,but now I will...which will become the HST!
Who is scamming who here?
I think there is much we are deliberately not being told about this tax grab!
If I didn't pay HST before,why do I have to pay it or the HST now if this is not a money grab?
Keep smiling Pat Bell and Shirley Bond...the day of reckoning for the Liberal party is at hand!

AndyFreeze,

The 1st question that comes to mind is why you didnt pay GST on your leased property before? Anything I have leased I have always had to pay GST on the lease, as well as PST in most cases. Once again for the small business side an advantage because we can now recover the PST, but I still wonder why you wernt paying it earlier, did they include it in the price and now are showing it? Doesnt add up to me but there is probably a reasonable explanation.

If it was there Tom, it was never shown.
It may have something to do with the fact that the lease is a long term on native land, managed by Indian Affairs,not the band.
But that's not the point.
I am not a business so I get nothing back.
I do however,get to pay more per year.
Funny how they neglected to fill us in on that?
I have a feeling there will be a more to come,and all the feel good news from the Liberals will not change that.
You may get something back,but the rest of us, who business owners need to stay afloat,get the shaft!
You cannot even begin to imagine how P.O.ed I am,and I am not alone!

I do know they have clamping down on Natives getting tax exemptions. As I understand it they are exempt from paying any tax on items bought or sold on native land, but if the transaction takes place off native land the tax must be paid?

"Seems like more smoke and mirrors to deflect peoples attention form the HST."

The above mentioned business initiatives started way before the HST ever made the news.

Should the business of the whole province come to a complete standstill because the HST issue might eventually be challenged with a petition?

Not very likely.

PrinceGeorge


as you pointed out, some peoples views are VERY narrow. I guess day to day business should cease to exist while a petition is circulated.

Who has ever said that day-to-day business should cease to exist while the Petition is circulated?

The Petition continues to gather names, and each time a story comes out like the one Andyfreeze has just related, more people are motivated to make the effort to sign, and oppose that stupid tax. We'll soon see if there are enough opposed to take the issue to the next step. My guess is that there will be, but the next two months will determine that.

There is little doubt the Liberals will try to put extra effort into getting "good news" announcements to attempt to portray themselves in a more favourable light with the public in this period. That's just politics. As usual. The public is not likely to be impressed to the point where it forgets the coming tax grab the HST will bring. And certainly not when the kind of things Andy has just brought to light keep coming up to remind them. And they will.

Nor, in regards to the Liberal MLAs, will it be forgotten that we elected these people to 'represent' us, and they are NOT doing that in regards to the HST.

When every poll taken shows well over 80% of British Columbians oppose this tax, and we have a group of MLAs who will not listen, who are so cowed by their Leader and Party that not even one of them has the guts to stand up in the Legislature and question the reasons for this tax, and whether reforming the PST might not have been a better way to go, no amount of "good news" announcements are going to erase the public's memories of that.

What a bunch of sheep! In WAC Bennett's time numerous Social Credit MLAs regularly stood up in the Legislature and lambasted their own government if they thought it was doing something contrary to the best interests of the citizens of their Constituency. It was expected that they would ~ that's what they were there for. To 'represent' the people of their particular riding. And if their government was embarassed by that, so much the better ~ that's how good government comes about.

Contrast that with this pathetic mob of boobs we have today. More of the caucus in a Cabinet larger than it takes to run the whole US Federal Government. And everyone of them effectively neutered by a bloated paycheque, and a pledge to "follow the Leader" called Cabinet solidarity.

And the backbenchers? Hoping to join their more fortunate colleagues, and "get while the gettings good", too. Every last mousey one of them. And maybe they will, as long as they remember whose favour they have to curry. And they call this 'democracy'? It's sick!

Socredible ... "The Chinese don't like 'frozen food' ~ they want it 'fresh'."

They also do not like stick framed housing. :-)

How much of a Chinese expert are you socredible?

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200011/20/eng20001120_55669.html

"More and more Chinese people, especially urban residents, purchase frozen foods for the convenience, freshness and neatness. Steady demand for the products is expected to continue in the following years."

"The province has more than 60 frozen food processing companies, with a combined annual capacity of 400,000 tons. Some such brands as "San Quan", "Ke Di", and "Zheng Rong" are popular throughout the country."

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=705904

"Total sales of frozen foods in China increased in value to RMB94.7bn by 2008, rising in value by 140% over 2002. Frozen potato products were the fastest growing sector, but from a very low base.

"The largest sector is for frozen ready meals, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated in range in China now. Per capita consumption grew by 70% since 2002 to reach 3.47KG per capita by 2008."

When you move from the farm and move into a city apartment with a refrigerator, you have to put something into the fridge.

Well said socredible!

Gus,

traditional native foods?

No need for freezing,

1st item, package 2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of water, pinch of salt. Instruction: Mix, stir and bake or fry.

2nd item

Smoked salmon. No need to freeze.

Your onto it, no frozen food for China, just simple native american food.

Kinda interesting that Carol James says to not expect the NDP to repeal the HST if her party wins the next election.

Socredible:"Who has ever said that day-to-day business should cease to exist while the Petition is circulated?"

Here is the answer:

Andy:"Seems like more smoke and mirrors to deflect peoples attention from the HST."

(This is an reference to the Delegation Explores Logistics Opportunities story).

The *Delegation Explores Logistics Opportunities* is seen as a diversionary Liberal tactic by the above poster. That is his opinion, which is fine. If true then it means that this kind of business meeting and effort has to be suspended while the HST is on the table, because any other important newsworthy effort such as the above would be nothing but a coldly calculated cynical effort to divert public attention away from the HST issue.

Fortunately the two issues have nothing in common, so it is simply a venting of frustration about the HST, which by the way I share, especially since it was dropped into our laps in such a sneaky underhanded manner.

That's why the Petition process is necessary, Stompin.

To take the first step in restoring democracy in British Columbia. The NDP has a great opportunity before it if it casts aside outdated "re-distributive" ideology based on provable false premisis and faces up to providing genuine alternatives.

This doesn't mean it has to abandon its 'social conscience', only recognize once and for all that the goal should be to try to ELIMINATE poverty, for ALL. Not EXTEND it. That can't be done through "tax and spend" ala HST and other similar devices, it's been tried and it simply doesn't work.

Whether the same kind of Neanderthals are in control in the NDP as are over at BC Liberal headquarters remains to be seen.

In the meantime, we're going to try our best to remove the decision on whether to rescind the HST from the likes of Ms. James and her Party, and vest it where it properly belongs ~ the PEOPLE adversely affected by that tax whom our elected representatives have failed so badly to properly "represent".

Socredible, you have a good point about MLAs being cowed by their leader and not allowed to step out of line and state their own opinions.

It is also fair to point fingers not only at the BC Liberals when in fact during a whole decade of BC NDP rule the very same thing happened. Not ONE NDP MLA ever stood up and spoke his/her own mind, they all obeyed the party line through thick and thin, through four different leaders and scandals too numerous to list here.

I chuckle when I read complaints about *Gordo* running the whole show and not allowing his MLAs to act individually as *Gordo* got his practical training during the raucous sessions in Victoria during the nineties while he was in opposition.

In fact, the present opposition is doing the same thing. The leader calls the shots and all the NDP MLAs pound the tables approvingly on command when their leader or one of their MLAs has spoken.

They all have the same opinion and they all agree? Sure!

Sheep. All of them, on both sides, now and in the past, here and in Ottawa and any other province.

"This doesn't mean it (NDP) has to abandon its 'social conscience', only recognize once and for all that the goal should be to try to ELIMINATE poverty, for ALL. Not EXTEND it."

One only has to look at history to see the future. It has been brought up many times that Saskatchewan and their NDP party are the only ones to remove the HST after it was put in place.

What I find very ironic is how it is never mentioned that very soon afterward the NDP in Saskatchewan raised their PST to 8% and rasied income tax, fuel tax and tabacco tax. By those moves they replaced the estimated HST income of 140 million with a tax grab which netted over 200 million.

IF that isnt taxing the poor what is? Yeah, "social conscience" alright.

Well, good for you, Gus, you've proved me wrong. Statistically, anyways. I'll look forward to attending the grand opening of Gus's BC Native Frozen Foods plant as soon as it gets up and running! I might even clap when Premier Campbell tells the assembled multitude it could never have happened without the HST!

Prince George, we expect lock-step, collectively uniform, ideologically based "thinking" from the NDP. That's the way they operate. Their underlying philosophy is that man exists to serve some system, rather than that all systems exist to serve man.

To the holders of that philosophy the 'individual'idea and ideal must always be subservient to the 'group'idea and ideal.

But should we expect the same from those who are said to be their philosophical opposites? I don't think so.

We didn't get that under Social Credit, not until very late in their first twenty years of office. And when we did, the people threw them out.

Even in their second incarnation under Bill Bennett, after most of the then BC Liberal caucus had in effect pulled off a 'reverse takeover'of BC Social Credit, there were still dissidents who spoke out. Bill Vander Zalm himself was one, before he came back to lead that party in 1986. This is healthy in any 'democracy'.

But what do we have with the BC Liberals today? The closest thing to dissedence aside from Paul Nettleton's early attempt to actually do his job (and subsequent ejection as a Liberal MLA for trying), came when Campbell was going to sell the Coquihalla Highway.

Or, pardon me, lease it out to a private operator for sixty years. And ex-Socred-cum-Liberal Claude Richmond, then Speaker of the House and supposedly neutered by that position, found his MLA's voice and actually "represented" what people in Kamloops were overwhelmingly telling him.

That selling, er, leasing, that highway was a stupid idea. Since then it's been the "silence of the lambs" in Campbell Liberaldom.

These people are NOT DOING THE JOB WE'RE PAYING THEM TO DO. And you can't have good government that way.

The NDP is no longer 'government' in Saskatchewan, Stompin.

Socredible:"Their underlying philosophy is that man exists to serve some system, rather than that all systems exist to serve man. To the holders of that philosophy the 'individual'idea and ideal must always be subservient to the 'group'idea and ideal."

Well put! I work, I pay my taxes and I don't want anybody to try to hitch me to some guilt or responsibility wagon because my efforts and some good luck and hard work allow me to lead a life which is average, not poor and not rich.

The philosophy of the NDP does not respect that.

Humans do exist to serve some system, the same as all other living things as well as inanimate things for that matter.

There are many systems people have invented to replace the "natural system". Those human systems serve a short term purpose.

Nevertheless, over the long term, those systems are totally meaningless in the big scheme of things. They only have meaning for those alive at the time they are affected by them.

I had the experience of visiting a communist country some years ago.

This communist system required that those living under its control had to give up individual choices such as where to live, where to work, where to shop, etc.

The state determined what would be manufactured and consequently the people had no choice about price, style and availability. If it appeared in store one would rush and buy it because if they didn't it would be gone and possibly not available for a long time.

The people served the system which relied on the people to give in and give up.

Wages were fixed by the state, as was everything else.

The functioning of the system took priority over everything.

The country called itself a Social Democratic Republic.

Yes, you're right, Prince George, the underlying philosophy of the NDP does NOT respect that.

Their idea is that of "robbing a few Peters to pay a lot of Pauls". A notion that can't help but be popular with all the "Pauls", even though very little of what's removed from the "Peters" ever seems to reach them.

Instead, it's usually lost somewhere in the "system", in administration costs, or something. And what we end up with are both "Peters" and "Pauls" roughly equal. Equally poor that is.

Well, what should we expect? Even Robin Hood and his Merrie Men had overheads and operating expenses. It cost something to keep themselves all "merrie". Not all that he stole from the 'rich' ended up in the hands of the 'poor' either.

Aside from that, one of the most interesting things about the whole Petition campaign is the degree of wholehearted support and assistance rendered by many INDIVIDUALS who are known to be strong NDP supporters.

They have been working right alongside those of us who are anything but NDP supporters, people from right across the whole political spectrum. All united in their opposition to this tax, and often even more particularly so, how it was brought in.

Their PARTY, on the other hand, officially 'opposes' the HST, but I haven't heard them say they'd rescind it if the Petition process fails to achieve that desired end, and they subsequently become government in the next general election. Maybe they have, but I'm not aware of it.