Wood Innovation Centre Tops IPG Wish List
By 250 News
Tuesday, October 05, 2010 09:43 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services has started its hearings in Prince George on what the provincial government should consider in its next budget deliberations.
Initiatives Prince George President and CEO Tim McEwan was the first to make a presentation and called for three priority items:
1. The wood innovation and design centre and associated programming. This request includes not only capital and operational funding for the Centre, ( with assistance from the Federal Government) but a request that the Wood Innovation and Design Centre include support for civil and mechanical engineering.
2. Highway 97 – The Pine Pass. This requests asked for the province, in partnership with the federal government to speed up the required safety and technical improvements to the Pine Pass to enable Prince George and Central B.C. supply and services businesses to compete for prospective business opportunities presented by the construction of the Site C dam and development in the natural gas industry in the Peace region.
3. P.G. Airport Authority. This request calls for provincial and federal funding for four specific projects at the airport : additional cargo apron, an additional instrument landing system, hydrant fueling and additional ground support equipment.
McEwan told the Committee there are a number of other matters which should be considered as well, including municipal infrastructure, a focus on physiotherapy ,occupational therapy speech therapy as priority areas for additional educational programming, look for creative ways to support rural K-12 education in the face of declining enrolment.
He also called up the committee to consider the decentralization of government offices such as environmental assessment and natural resources.
The Committee will continue hearing submissions until 1:00 today, and will hear from the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, City of Prince George, UNBC, Pacific Sport, NDI Trust, the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition and the Commonwealth Group.
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Posted by: Harbinger on October 5 2010 7:38 PM
The proposed cost to upgrade highway 97 and the Pine Pass would cost approx $400 Million. Seems to me that is a hell of a lot of money to upgrade the road on the **chance that the local yokels can compete with Alberta for this business. Even if they could, would the amount of work generated even come close to the cost of the upgrade to get the product to Northern BC or to the oilfields?? Where do you draw the line on expenditures to help business. When does it make more sense to have the material etc supplied from another source.???? Maybe some of the business's in Prince George should relocate to Ft St John and save us a pile of money.
The PG Airport is a Federally owned airport leased to the Airport Authority. Why is it that the Provincial Government has to keep throwing money at a Federal project.??? This airport authority has not made a red cent since its inception, and in fact has lost money. It has spent huge sums for the expansion of the terminal building, expansion of the parking lot, and of course the $36 Million for the runway expansion with no return on investment to date.
The Aiport Authority still owes $11 Million to the Northern Initiative Trust, plus God knows how much to the banks, so for all intents and purposes it is broke, but still looking for more money to spend.
They are supposed to start paying lease payments to the Federal Government in 2011. I wonder where they will get the money for these payments.
The Airport Improvement Fees increased from $5.00 to $10.00, to $15.00, to $18.00 since 2003. Are we going to get more increases.
How come IPG never has any suggestions on how private business can locate and spend money in this town. Seems all they can do is try and get Government money. Is that their mandate, or have they lost their way.