No Commitments, But New Opportunities

Monday, February 12, 2007 11:45 AM

Mayor Colin Kinsley, Train In P.G.'s Virginia Sprangers, and Initiatives Prince George's Gerry Offet brief media

Prince George Mayor Colin Kinsley says his most recent trip to China didn’t produce any firm commitments from teams wanting to train here, but, it did open up new roads for transportation links.

Changchun is the inland port for northwest China “They already have DHL, Fedex and UPS 747 heavy transport planes accessing other world markets out of there,” says Kinsley. “ When we had a lengthy discussion with their transportation director that when they start accessing North America they take a very hard close look at Prince George because that fits exactly with the plan the Airport Authority is making to capture that new growth in air transportation.”

The Mayor says there was also an interest expressed in beef exports from Canada to Changchun, and a desire to have Canadian Beef producers head to China to teach people there how to develop healthy herds.

As for the Train In P.G. efforts, Virginia Sprangers from Initiatives Prince George says they expect to start hearing from teams, from China, Korea and Japan as early as May. That is when Olympic curling teams are expected to make their training commitments. Initiatives Prince George boss, Gerry Offet says most teams are looking at starting their Olympic training focus later this year, and that should coincide with the opening of the new UNBC Sports Centre.

Cost of the trip? Mayor Kinsley figures his portion was about $3500 and Sprangers says her share was also in that range for a total travel bill of approximately $7,000.

The Mayor did come home with one signed deal. It is a “Memorandum of Friendly Exchange Between Prince George and Changchun” (shown at right) This is the first step necessary to “twin” Prince George with Changchun.

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Posted on Monday, February 12, 2007 11:45 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: bohemian on February 12 2007 1:51 PM

Kinsley "figures" his portion was "about" $3,500, and Springers says her share was "also in that range."

Are these people incapable of collecting receipts as they go and totalling them up?

Given a week to come up with a report, I could give you a cost breakdown of my recent trip to Vancouver TO THE PENNY (including that darn contribution to the Williams Lake coffers via the RCMP highway patrol.)

Posted by: trusted on February 12 2007 2:08 PM

Waiting for this form of "press" release is just too funny for words.
Blah, blah, blah-saying nothing of any consequence.
Another trip should be just around the corner. Betcha' Gerry wants to go on the next one.
I am kind of surprised Sprangers costs were in the same ballpark.
Guess she really knows how to throw 'em back also. Or did she share?

Posted by: diplomat on February 12 2007 2:29 PM

Quebec City is already a twinned city of Changchun.

What else is there to say about the junket?

Posted by: caranmacil on February 12 2007 2:44 PM

What else to say? We could be triplets. Or
how about: at least they are trying to get something out of the olympics and fronting PG to the chinese. Who else in this province (including the govt. labour or the commentors in this forum )are doing ANYTHING to promote PG in china? Seriously folks, we need to start doing this kind of thing or we are going to be in big trouble when the pine runs out. As for the exact cost, who cares if it plus or minus a few hundred? As far as i am concerned, given canadian beaurocratic spending habits, this 'junket' was done for a reasonable price. If you all think that junkets like this are a lot of fun and no work then you are wrong. If you dont believe me then maybe you ought to run for office, shake babies and kiss hands, get elected and then you can go on one yourself. Then, aften spending a few days promoting your city to a bunch of people who dont seem all that interested, you can come home and account for every penny to people who want concrete benefits from everything you do.
So there! :)

Posted by: Jeth on February 12 2007 3:05 PM

What about last year's mega-junket to Italy?

What 'opportunities' were developed on THAT subsidized holiday??

If there were some, say so. If there were none, say so.

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 3:31 PM

caranmacil

I know an individual who owns a family business that has operations based in the GVRD and operates thougout Canada.

They have been in business for some 30+ years, employ in the order of 1,000 people throughout the country and have contracts in other parts of the world including South America and Oceania.

Several years ago they decided to see if they could spread their wings to China.

They have proven business experience, including in the international marketplace. They know that China requires the kind of know how they have. They would be using Chinese to work in that country, only providing project management and technical expertise and teaching the Chinese to operate at the level we operate.

Two+ years later and much networking time and development dollars later, there is still not as much as a nibble.

I think based on general information plus more specific information such as the above, the Chinese are tough negotiators. It is like playing a game of poker. Who holds the upper hand and who is bluffing?

Did anyone notice the exchange with Harper and the Chinese last week? Human rights demands on one hand, threat to undermine trade on the other hand.

Where does this City stand on human rights and China? Are we seeking agreements with them despite their postion on not meddling in their internal approach to human rights? Or is that too high a level of dabate and we should not touch it at a City government level?

Does anyone posting on this newsblog really care? Does IPG really care? How about those on the IPG Board? How about City Council?

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 3:33 PM

Italy? ... We are sending 250 cases of Okanagan wine and they are sending 250 cases of Chianti.

That's called trade. That helps the Okanagan. :-)

Posted by: giterdun on February 12 2007 3:42 PM

OUR COPY OF "THE MEMORAMDUM OF FRIENDLY EXCHANGE" ENDS UP ON THE FRONT PAGE. YIPPEE!. WONDER WHICH BIN THERE COPY ENDED UP IN??

Posted by: diplomat on February 12 2007 4:12 PM

Once more, the question should be:" Where's the beef?"

Posted by: Longnecks1 on February 12 2007 4:28 PM

Maybe a lot of you would like Kinsley to join this junket. Complaining here that no one is doing anything and we still have pot holes....*LOL* I give the man credit for at least getting our name out there, and the possibility of getting something out of it. For only $7000.00. Heck some of you business men suck that much out of the city coffers in one day, with at least a 65% profit then have the gull to complain about money they can't find a way to get.
Go Colin...maybe with some insperation this city can survive.

Posted by: lmorg on February 12 2007 4:52 PM

Useless, totally and utterly useless.

Posted by: Harbinger on February 12 2007 5:19 PM

Kidnap hizzoner's travel agent.

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 5:39 PM

Where's the beef??? ...

In Canada. Too many mad cow incidents. It's stayin' this side of the border.

Now soy beans. That's another matter. Are we sendin' soy beans yet?

How about chop sticks? Where are all those value-added blue pine designer chop sticks with "made in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada" lasered into the top edge?

Posted by: Gofaster on February 12 2007 5:52 PM

His head must still be in a fog, from jet lag or????? if he doesn't know how much he spent...
He,Kinsley, in my opinion doesn't care one bit if the populace likes his world tours or not...he will go and do as he sees fit, come back give us the same old story... and we are supposed to buy it and be happy about it...
"we make some contacts...we talked to people", ya who???
oh well elections are comming and all this will be brought up again at that time...by me if need be.... people won't soon forget him....

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 6:14 PM

I just did a lot of squinting and read the image attached.

In part it says: "To enhance the mutual understanding and friendly relationship, both of the cities agree to promote the exchanges in the fields of economy, culture, education, sports and tourism."

Sounds like English written by a Chinese interpreter from a Chinese version.

But I digress.

I noticed that "culture" is second and "sports" is fourth in a list of five.

We had better build that Performing Arts Centre so that we have a reputable venue to host the Changchun Er'renzhuan Opera on their trip here in 2010.

http://www.changchun.gov.cn/yingwenban/ctjr_detail.jsp?ID=120703000000000000,2

Perhaps this is a plot by City Hall to get the PAC built behind a sports exchange smoke screen?

Posted by: diplomat on February 12 2007 6:29 PM

"Go Colin..."

Too late! His Worship just expressed on TV that he wouldn't be interested in making another trip to China!

Posted by: Palopu on February 12 2007 8:20 PM

Being on the board of the Worlds Winter Mayors convention committee I expect that Colin will be off to Greenland in 2008. All his friends from China will be there, and of course the only other Mayor from a City in North America, the Mayor of Anchorage (If he goes).

FedEx established itself in China some 20 years ago. UPS, and DHl were not far behind. FedEx has built a new Hub in Guangzhou , China at the Airport there, an investment of $150 Million for a 83000 Sq Metre Facility. 1200 Staff handle 24000 package per hour. Plans for 200 flights per week to complement and extend the capacity of the Fedex Hub in the Phillipines.

These companies have plans for the next 10 to 20 years into the future, and you can rest assured they are not based on when and if the City of Prince George completes its 400 ft extension of its Regional Airport in the middle of nowhere with a measly population of 77,000 people.

I beleive that these Asian games had about 700 atheletes from some 20 Countries and that most of the medals were won by China, Japan, and Korea. These people can train anywhere in the world. Will they come to Prince George to train. Who knows? I suspect that they will want to train in the Greater Vancouver area to be closer to the action. Even if some do train here it will make very little of no difference to our overall economy. I think this is a lot of halabalou about nothing.

I hope the Mayor and Spranger enjoyed the games.

Posted by: charles on February 12 2007 8:40 PM

It would be interesting to see how much money is being spent annually on out of town travel by City of Prince George employees.

Posted by: caranmacil on February 12 2007 8:58 PM

Owl:
I also have read that the chinese are ruthless and can be damned difficult to deal with. Does that mean that we just throw up our hands and put our heads in the sand? Prince george is a resource town. It is likely to remain that way for some time. It would really pay to expand our horizons. Nobody said it would be easy. If it were, everyone would have done it already and every town in the north would be booming and filled with millionaires. We have to start somewhere, anywhere. Give me some potholes and a single lane bridge over a well paved town full of politicians and simple folk who rely on provincial and federal beaurocrats to look after our best interests.
As for chinas human rights record well i dont think i really care. If we only dealt with countries with the same moral code as our own we would not deal with all that many people. Further, if that attitude carried over to all the world the europeans would not deal with us (because of the natives) and a lot of third world nations would not deal with us over our kyoto record. MAybe the arab world would stop dealing with us because we do not follow sharia.

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 10:06 PM

caranmacil ..

"I also have read that the chinese are ruthless and can be damned difficult to deal with. Does that mean that we just throw up our hands and put our heads in the sand?"

.... wrong conclusion .... the conclusion I reach with that is to:

- see who in the world (countries and individual businesses) have been able to deal with them successfully

- analyze why and how that is the case

- partner with those where a partnership is possible to get help or to actually combine trade with them

- send our best people to meet key individuals or ogranizations.

etc. etc ....

It's called problem solving as opposed to gambling.

----------------

human rights ....

Again, you made an assumption which was the wrong ....

I believe that generally the best way to change a culture is not with punitive actions but with slow, plodding work.

North Korea is an example of the punitive action approach. Not much result there so far after half a century plus.

So, from my point of view the approach is to increase contact rather than decrease it. The cultural understanding resulting from that typically goes in both directions.

-------------------

What disturbs me is that you really do not care.

Posted by: owl on February 12 2007 10:21 PM

BTW ... if Canada had a policy with respect to dealing with China and other countries who may have some questionable practices which would include increased contact, the ther might be some assitance from the feds to accomplish that Nation to Nation connection, which is a federal responsibility and trips for purposes of increasing such ocntacts at all levels would be subsidized by federal rather than local dollars and should come with some expert help attached as well as a feedback loop which means reporting back results os that improvements can be made .....

but ... again ... too far advanced ... bean counters still rule the world and we are seeing the results more and more ...

;-)

Posted by: Chadermando on February 13 2007 4:50 AM

The small group of communist men that run China can still be very dangerous to us in the near future. They will have all our key technology.

That said we aren't about to change the world by not trading with China. I actually support the mayors trip for that cost. I've seen much worse use of tax dollars for travel for much less token potential.

I view China�s political class as a rouge regime so would not deem them worthy enough to have tariff free trade with Canada. China manipulates its currency and doesn't respect human or animal rights.

Canada needs to protect its manufacturing base from this kind of poaching, and speak our mind on the humanitarian side. Canada is not a weak country that needs to beg for China's trade. China, however, is an overpopulated country who�s future affluence will strongly desire our resources.

I say we keep the UN in New York to represent Empires and banker propped up dictators. This way they can continue to entertain each other. Meanwhile we should set up a regional economic order that is founded on democracy and human rights(right to organize, minimum wage, environment). Only those who meet the set democracy standard and are in compliance with human rights respect have active membership. Active membership entitles ones region to mutual free trade with all other member regions.

Undemocratic nations will sit on the outside of a growing tide of global moral authority and will through shared shame desire on their own to meet the standards we demand of those who wish to trade freely and fairly with us.

Meanwhile if they need to buy some wood, wheat, water, corn, coal, oil or just stop by for a tank of fuel, then by all means I support that. In reality that is all we will likely export to China in the long run anyways.