OMG - The sky is falling!!!!!!!!!!
(Just wanted to be first to say it)

YAA HOO !!! THIS IS JUST THE START. HANG ON TO YOUR HAT FOLKS WE ARE IN FOR A GOOD RIDE.

Good, but I guess it means house prices will soar again.....time to move to a less expensive town...if there is one out there

As I said before this tonnage is presenlty moving to Vancouver Via Rail and Truck and loaded into Containers in Vancouver. Its the same business only going to Rupert rather than Vancouver. There will be some jobs gained and some jobs lost, so dont get too excited.

I wonder if they will be able to keep it on the tracks????

Does anybody take good news for good news. This is good news. Any jobs created here is great. With the lumber products falling with the pine beetle, we will need every job we can get.
If CN has commited you can bet they have the inside to the airport also with the feds...Won't belong before that anouncement is made too.
You all better get out there and buy some trucks...will be lots of work around..*L*

Just think what this would have meant to British Columbia's citizens if only we still owned our railroad. We would have been the one's reaping the profits instead of the American owners. This is what happens when we elect governments who's ideology does not include the value of publically owned investments. Poor business for the citizens of this province, but at least we will get some more jobs.

I understand what you are saying Palopu and you may be right in the initial phases. It is a shift in the way business is being done.

The immediate benefit is an infrastructure investment in the community.

As you and others can probably appreciate, we are witnessing two things, a continuing increase in transporting goods from one part of the globe to another, and a shift in transportation systems to reduce the cost of transportation as much as possible. As with most systems shifts, the preference is to reduce the amount of labour. Containerization is one of the responses to that. The shift will happen whether we wish it or not.

So, will trucking jobs in the continental goods supply line be lost? Likely. Will rail transport increase? Likely. Will the net employment change show an increase or decrease or be neutral? Likely the former, since it would otherwise not make much sense to shift operation methods. Will PG see a drop in employment? That depends on where the truckers call home. They can call either end of the supply line, or almost any reasonable node on that supply line home as long as they can load and unload 24/7/365. So, I do not know what percentage call PG “home”.

No matter what the answer to those questions are, one thing is for sure, having the inland container port here rather than elsewhere is a positive thing for this community. If it were elsewhere, we would lose all jobs and have no infrastructure which can also become a starter seed for a few spin offs.

Again, it is too bad it is happening there rather than elsewhere on the trackage. However, given that the containers will flow both east-west and north-south, and that location is as close to that node as possible I cannot blame CN for choosing it.

I suggest the City build the Patricia Blvd extension from City Hall to the bridge so that the industrial traffic along First is segregated from non-trucking traffic.

Failing that, it is time that they create a better visual barrier between the rail yards and traffic on First Avenue. The so called "businesses" on the north side are just piles of junk, not even behind "sight obscuring" fences.

We are not the only City that has this situation. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto certainly come to my mind. Those and others, however, have managed to reduce the impact of such industrial activity on the rest of downtown and regained access to bodies of water that these traditional transportation corridors and associated industries occupy.

Actually "Gofaster" made a very interesting comment here.
"I wonder if they will be able to keep it on the tracks?"
Can you imagine the bottleneck that a serious derailment between here and Prince Rupert will cause? Ships tied up and waiting for containers that are not coming?
Double tracking is still the key to making all this work for everyone.
Maybe that will be the next announcement?And I have agree will Palopu.I also see it as the same business going in a different direction.Not my intention to be negative either.Nice to hear just the same.I hope it all comes together and soon.Hell,I may have to move back to Rupert soon!(not!)
By the way,wait time for these same ships is roughly $15,000 up to $35,000 per day depending on the type of ship and cargo.Tramp grain and coal ships normally have the cheapest wait time and some have a negotiated rate.When things are slow,the demurage rate goes way down and shippers try to make deals to hold them to the cheapest rates.They DO NOT like to wait for cargo!

There goes our access to the rivers which should properly be parkland.

We are one of the few locations anywhere to be blessed with two rivers.

We are sure gumming them up to look pretty ugly and inaccessible. The rivers could be a great tourist attraction and are, properly, the heart of the City.

Where is the heart now?

Foo738- That is the area north of the Nechako river between foothills and the hart highway.

The inland port announcement is good news, plain and simple. Those who cannot take it as such ought to read the part of Owls letter dealing with the alternative. Those who choose to paint everything as being no better than neutral need to lighten up a bit. At the very least, wait and see what happens and then if things dont work out, let us all have it with a big 'i told you so'
I was, by the way, against the BC Rail sale. However, given the way BC Rail was managed, and the fact that CN is building the port, would be talking about this this, or the new port in rupert at all?
I dont know, but i shudder in fear as i say: you tell me.

This Prince Rupert Container Port has absolutely nothing to do with the Old BC Rail. It is being built to handle loaded Containers from Asia to the AMERICAN MIDWEST. These containers will be loaded on rail cars in Prince Rupert and go directly to the US Midwest on CN Lines and even if the BC Rail were still owned by the BC Government they wouldnt be involved in this venture, however because they were owned by the BC Government and this traffic historically moved to Vancouver via BC Rail there would have been some political reasons for not having a Port in Prince Rupert. With the sale of BC Rail the Political problem was removed.

Most people do not understand that there are approx 60,000 Containers loaded in Vancouver each year with product from this area. If these containers are now going to be loaded in Prince George for Prince Rupert, that means less truck and rail traffic to Vancouver (Loss of Jobs) more traffic to Prince Rupert (More Jobs) who knows if in fact there will be a net gain of jobs. I suspect there will be but it will not be very big.

Another point that I have tried to get people to understand but cant seem to get it through to them is the increase in costs we are going to experience as a result of there not being any back haul loads to Vancouver. Every Grocery store from Hope, to Ft St John, to Prince Rupert, Kitimat, is supplied with Grocerys and fresh produce out of Vancouver. Probably in the area of 150 of more trucks per week. When these trucks are empty they load pulp, paper, lumber, ingots, etc; to Vancouver. If these loads are not available they will have to go back empty. If they go back empty then the rate for the inbound loaded truck will increase by approx $600.00 per truck. This increase cost will be reflected in your grocery bill. On the surface this doesnt look like much, but in fact it amounts to an additional cost in Transportation on inbound products to the North Central BC of approx $46 Million dollars a year. This is a real cost that we are facing, as we cannot get Groceries and Fresh Produce for most of the year except from Vancouver (California) Edmonton, Calgary.

I might add that $20 Million for a reload facility in Prince George is not a lot of money, considering that we spent $30 Million on the Sportsplex, we will spend $20 Million on a new Police station, and maybe $18 Million on a Co-Generation plant.

If we get a net gain of jobs from all of this then it will be worth it, however at the end of the day I suspect that CN Rail will be the big winner, followed by Mayer Terminals of New Jersey, The Port of Prince Rupert, and then maybe Prince George.

One thing is certain. The ports in Vancouver like Delta Port, Van Term, Centerm, etc; are not going to let this traffic go away without a fight, and will probably reduce their handling costs etc; to try and retain the business. The best case scenario for Prince George would be for half to go to Vancouver and half to Prince Rupert, that way we would have the best of both worlds.(Ports) We will just have to wait and see how it plays out.

The problem with any announcements of positive economic activity, is that the real estate industry and landowners take it as a signal to raise house prices. I have been back in PG for about 8 months and in that time house prices have risen at least 25%. I moved back to buy an affordable house. I am now priced out of the market.

Palopu the Port deal was a go ahead months before the BC Rail deal was done. It did not need to be privatized to make it politically possible for the Port of Prince Rupert to go ahead. The only political aspect was the need to pretend there was two bidders long enough to give away the provincial monopoly to our public infrastructure. BC could easily have created a user cost allocation and made BC an open port to all rail operators on our public assets and used that as an incentive for all shipping companies.

I think initially there will be a lot of lost trucking jobs hauling both to Vancouver and Edmonton ports. I doubt this container port in itself will create much more than 20 jobs locally. On the cost side I could see at least 40-60 trucks off the road as a result of the local port option for the regional mills.

The closest opportunity for PG is if we can intercept the groceries going through PG bound for Edmonton. Those warehousing jobs would off load a container of groceries for breakdown at their own location elsewhere in the city and distributed throughout the region replacing local distribution from Edmonton and Vancouver.

Other opportunities will be based on supply line location with the new types of cargo going by our front door and may take decades to develop.

That said this deal stinks. Why did the people of PG have no say in the development of our downtown river front? What about our air-shed concerns with the additional truck traffic and rail engines operating in our downtown in the center of our sensitive air-shed? We just killed any future for the downtown IMO. RIP Downtown.

IMO this absolutely should have been located where the city would like its future major industrial park to be located. This way the road infrastructure and the air pollution capabilities of new industry oriented towards port capabilities will be in the desired location. Obviously this community has no leadership from our politicians at all levels.

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

Opens Fall of 2007!

I guess 5th and Carney is going to get really busy? Maybe we should up grade Victoria street for the traffic from the BCR Site and west of town? This is great community planning on behalf of the city. I bet the mayor got to select the location himself for promotion of his bridge.

CN says surprise take it or leave it?

It's beyond me why CN could not have done this out in Fraser Flats with the provincial and federal government coordinating city bi-pass infrastrucutre enabling an industrial park that could accommodate fiberboard plants, pellet plants, and co-gen plants for future industrial expansion downwind from PG.

heck the natives just turned down an offer of a prime location for an industrial park. Why not take the opportunity to acquire that land for an industrial park with its rail access and find another piece of land for the natives in question? For the good of PG's air quality? Maybe next time they will sign a good deal.

shinny beads, shinny beads.....

Chadermando. My point about the BC Rail was that they stood to lose a lot of business if the Prince Rupert port was a go. Mainly because 80% of the Export traffic to Vancouver Ports was handled by BC Rail and it would be handled by CN Rail to Prince Rupert. Once the Sale of BC Rail was in the works, they no longer had a concern.

When I talk about groceries I am talking mainly about fresh produce. This produce in produced in Washington, Oregon, California, and South America, and trucked through Vancouver to the North Central BC and on to Alaska. From November to July this is the only source we have for Fresh Produce. The balance of the groceries are also handled through Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, warehouses.

There is no possibility of bringing Fresh fruit and vegetables through the Port of Prince Rupert from China, and therefore if all the outbound loads go through Prince Rupert we lose the backhauls to Vancouver and we will see a significant increase in the Price of Groceries.

The CN is putting the Container Re-Load where it is because they own the land, the track is already in place, and it fits in perfectly with the overall operation. There is no big surprise here.

The big surprise is that people think that this is a big deal, when in fact I agree with you that we will be lucky if it creates a net gain of 10/20 jobs, maybe enough to offset the loss of the jobs from the Call Centre that closed recently.

One should keep in mind that since the early 70's CN has downsized and eliminated approx 1500 jobs between Prince George and Prince Rupert. It looks like we might get back 100 between Prince George and Rupert, if we are lucky. Better than nothing.

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.

This container thing is the best news PG has had since the university.I wonder if the idiot ney sayers have given any thought to what is going to happen to our forest industry in the next 5-10 years. we may need the jobs that this move is going to bring to the area by way of manufactureing ect. I suggest that if some of you people hate industry so much there are some nice places in the Kooteneys that have very affordable houseing and very little polution. Mabey they should seriously consider a move....

Dozer - it is not a case of "hating" industry. It is a case of locating industry where it will benefit all; the citizens with health and safety issues and industry with its' need to stretch and grow.
Certainly not in the middle of a an already pollutted valley.

"That said this deal stinks. Why did the people of PG have no say in the development of our downtown river front? What about our air-shed concerns with the additional truck traffic and rail engines operating in our downtown in the center of our sensitive air-shed? We just killed any future for the downtown IMO. RIP Downtown.

IMO this absolutely should have been located where the city would like its future major industrial park to be located. This way the road infrastructure and the air pollution capabilities of new industry oriented towards port capabilities will be in the desired location. Obviously this community has no leadership from our politicians at all levels."

Good on you Chadermando. I wish I could have the opportunity of voting for you.

I agree Dozer. Some people are born complainers. First they say an inland container terminal will never happen and when the announcement is made it's "no big deal" and nothing else will ever spinoff from this.
Cadermando-you don't understand why CN didn't locate in the Fraser Flats? Seems simple- lift up all the tracks that are now in place and move them. The rail yards are in place and have been for years, yet you blame the city for not letting you have your say on where this facility should be located?
"Mabey they should seriously consider a move...."

The province and the feds with CN and ALCAN should be making as deal to sell electricity to electrify the CN line within BC, starting with the north. It would be part of the CO2 emission green plan. Within the city it would cut diesel engine pollution and reduce engine noise.

The excuses for dropping the electric train between Tumbler Ridge and PG were very lame. European trains have been electrified for many decades – Italy, Sweden, Austria 60%, France 44% Switzerland 100%, Australia 10%; USA 1%; Canada 0.1% … AMTRACK 100%

http://www.trainscan.com/hist/tmbl/index.html

Some people shoud get their terminolgy straight before they start shooting from the lip.

Firstly the official News Release by CN Rail specifically states;

**CN to build C$20 Million transload centre, Intermodal yard in Prince George.**

Dont confuse a transload centre or an Intermodal yard with an Inland Container Port as they are two different types of operations.

The transload centre and intermodal yard will transfer pulp, paper, lumber etc; from trucks and rail cars to Containers, which will be loaded on rail cars and sent to Prince Rupert. Most of this traffic now moves to Vancouver via truck and rail cars and is then loaded into Containers put on ships and sent to Asia. This is the same business going to a different port, and therefore there will not be a significant increase in jobs.

An Inland Container Port brings in thousands of loaded containers from say Asia and these containers are either delivered direct to customers within a 3 or 4 hundred mile radius, or they are unloaded into huge distribution centres and reshipped around the country.

As an example Wal Mart has a huge container distribution centre in Houston Texas, approx 500,000 sq feet or more with over 70 Truck bays. Product is distributed from this Warehouse to Walmart stores all over the American SouthWest on a daily basis.

The biggest warehouse in the Greater Prince George area is Prince George Pulp and Paper with approx 40,000 sq ft of warehouse space and **get this** 6 truck bays. The CN 84000 sq ft cross dock warehouse will probably have something like 10 truck bays and say 10 rail unloading doors.

As I said dont be confused between the two. To the best of my knowlege there is not one **bone fide** Inland Container Port anywhere in Canada.

We do not have the population, or customers in the North West Interior of Prince George to support any Inland Container Port.

The loaded Containers from Prince Rupert will go to the American Mid-West for distribution through Inland Container Ports in that area. This enable them to service major Cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, etc; Roughly an area that has a population of somewhere in the area of 50 to 100 Million people. That where the action is.

From 100 Mile house to Ft St John to Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Terrace, and all points in between we have a population of 301,000 people. Not enough people to keep a Inland Container Port going for one day let alone years.

Its time to come to terms with the fact that we live in an isolated, lowly populated part of the world. Take some time away from your computer terminal and TV set and look out the window.

Maybe Prince George is destined to be a mini Chicago? Who knows?

I believe we are located in a very unique part of North America. Centrally located in the center of our province. Situated at the confluence of two rivers and the junction of two major highways. The hub of the north.

Ever think why Baldy Hughes (Radar Base) was situated in PG? Norad must have some good reasons.

Ever hear that Prince George is known as a city of refuge? Safe from tital waves. Safe from earthquakes for the most part. Safe from major flooding.

Really, it's not a bad place to live. And actually, compared to some of the problems other communities have, PG isn't so bad.

Now that so much of our timber has been logged off, or killed off by beetles, we can probably begin to access other resources like oil and gas or gold and minerals. The concerns about the environmentalists will be focusing on other areas now to preserve. The damage has already been done and we can't change that.

I see opportunities everywhere. We need a pro-active government who is willing to encourage businesses to come to our province to develop our resources.

We have a responsibility to make sure land claims are honoured and settled, so they don't stop the development of our province.

We have a responsibility to provide and develop a reliable, skilled labour force who are willing to work to make this province prosperous again for everyone who lives here.

Let's all begin to work together to make this happen. What would PG look like with a population of 300,000? Maybe we need some new leaders who have a vision for what PG could be and begin taking us in that direction. I think it's possible. But, we need to change the way we have been doing business. Chester

The biggest problem facing this town right now is it's image around the province and the country. Is it possible for an industrial based city to be a clean and healthy place to live? Yes. Very little has been done since I moved here 20 years a go.
Every city with a waterfront makes its waterfront a focal point. Not P.G..
Move the rail yard. Allow housing to be built downtown.

Palopu .... you like to cite percentages ....

the article says: “
The new facility, with an 84,000 square-foot warehouse and 10 acres of outside storage, is expected to open in fall 2007”

You say: “The biggest warehouse in the Greater Prince George area is Prince George Pulp and Paper with approx 40,000 sq ft of warehouse space”

Give me an idea of how many other warehouses there are in PG of any significance and tell me what percentage increase the new warehouse will create compared to the total space we currently have.

If that is say 20%, would that be a significant increase? How about 30 or 40%? … when comparing that to the population increase in PG would it mean that we have more warehouse space her per 10,000 population thane we have had for some time? How about that rate of warehouse space per 10,000 population to Houston Texas? Kelowna?

I do not know what those figures would be. You might, or you might be able to find them more quickly than I could. However, what I do know is that the centre with the highest active warehouse space ratio to population is the centre which can claim to have more warehouse space than required by its own population and is thus exporting warehousing services to those communities on the lower end of the scale. Anything we can do to increase the amount of services and goods we provide rather than purchase is helpful to the community’s survival.

"Situated at the confluence of two rivers"

Only of importance if at least one of them was a transportation route. Neither is. If they were, we would have even more industry along most of the waterfront the same as other communities.

As a result of that, we would have had an opportunity to reclaim much of that riverfront since the water transport facilities which harbour ships and the transmodal facilities (never used to call that in the old days *smile*) associated with them would have been abandoned and made great public markets, waterfront restaurants, loft apartments, quaint hotels, etc.

In our case the waterfront industry is there since the tracks are there and since some of the industry such as the pulp mills needed access to water. New pulp mills no longer have that requirement.

Of course at one time the waterfront was use for a harbour for the riverboats. Thus Hamilton street was the original centre of "european" commerce. Once the boating died as rail came and highways were built, the service buildings were no longer needed and the commerce centre moved to the rail.

Hamilton street is now a plain old residential subdivision.

It is no longer economical to move the "centre of commerce", although it may shift slowly over time, so we will have to learn to live with it the same as other cities have done. We should be learning how it has been done in other places, because the way we are handling it is no longer acceptable for a modern city. The tracks ain't movin' for some time, so let’s figure out how we can move our population closer to the water for some of the community activities. The city should be involved with how CN is planning to use its facilities and working towards buying back some of the land as it becomes available. It can do tons to create a visual barrier along First avenue. Instead it allows shacks to stay there and a junk yard operator to expose rusty equipment to passers by. Great advertising to those who fly in to Calgary, rent a car, drive through the Rockies and through PG to the coast. I am sure they tell all their friends in their home country to stay in McBride or Valemount and drive through PG with eyes and nose closed and stay in Smithers or Williams Lake.

We are the masters of our own destiny. If we want a clean lookin' place, we gotta clean it up!

"Every city with a waterfront makes its waterfront a focal point. Not P.G. Move the rail yard. Allow housing to be built downtown."

You are right on the first point. I think we can make the second point a long range plan. To help it along, one needs to work on the first objective. Housing is allowed to be built downtown. Just no one interested in doing it. Why would anyone want to live in a problem area of the city when there are much nicer places to live? Such as along the river!!

Think of the development along the waterfront in New Westminster. There is a railway right behind it. That used to be on the water. The housing, hotel, quay, and pedestrian walk were simply built between it and the water.

We have that opportunity all along River Road. Once housing is built there, property values will rise and the mills will eventually want to move since they can sell the property at a good profit helping to offset the cost of moving to a more accessible location out of the air shed.

So, what is needed to accomplish that? For the City to change the OCP to encourage that development and install the infrastructure to accomplish it – services, access roads, screening for industry, riverbank stabilization and walkways, creating an active urban park rather than a passive greenway. We need imaginative people in planning and on Council who can take the lead in this and cause it to happen. I simply do not see that right now. All I see is STUPID growth, not SMART growth.

Downtown Vancouver, right or wrong, developed into what it is today through a very strong planning direction set initially by Ray Spaxman starting in 1973 though to the late 1980s. We need a Ray Spaxman for PG. We need a mayor and Council who understand that is what we need and wo would back an individual like that.

http://www.bearspage.info/h/tra/ca/bc/qu.html

see the railway? http://thehulbertgroup.com/westmins.htm

http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/livablecentres/newwest.htm

speaking of other uses for riverfront,

wouldn't it be great if there were a cafe where one could stop for a coffee, maybe some socializing, out on the deck overlooking a nice riverview while taking a jaunt down around Cottonwood Island Park area?

And to have a pedestrian bridge across the river to go to a nice pub or restaurant while incorporating it in with a long riverfront/ forest trail walk?

and even to incorporate a market (farmer's) with such a day outing.

There are some would -be beautiful areas around the river but since I moved here (within last 10 years), I have only seen them gobbled up by industry, not enhanced so much. Coming from towns like Vancouver, Victoria with fabulous waterfronts & walking, this is pretty hard to take re: lifestyle.

Would be nice to keep the forested parts of current parks intact.

Who would built it? There is a nice Tea House just south of Ashcroft for sale cheap!

I agree very much active...

Like everything else one has to prepare the infrastructure for it to happen. Instead, the city is promoting inactive use.

Maybe it even needs to happen in another, more populated/used area of town first. There is good access to the Exploration Place, for instance. I think that should have been built closer to the riverbank in the first instance. But there could be a restaurant in that area, for instance. People have been talking about riverboats, whether jet boats or more like a paddle wheeler. Could be moored right there.

I know that this introduces more motorized use of the river which some will not like, but it is something which will provide people visiting as well as local residents with additional options during about 5 months of the year.

Once it happens in a more populated place and is successful, others will look to provide the same elsewhere if there is enough demand.

Owl. I used the comparison between Pr George Pulp and Paper Warehouse and truck bays, and the new CN warehouse and truck bays to give a comparison and to show that it is not a very big operation. The increase in Warhouse space by adding the CN warehouse will in fact have a detrimental effect on the other Warhouses in Prince George because they do some of the work now, that will go to the CN Warehouse. There is empty capacity at the only two warehouse complexes in Prince George at any given moment throught out the year, and I suggest that this will increase when the CN Warehouse is completed, and therefore again, **no net gain** For every action there is a reaction.

“very big” is a relative term. “very big” in Chicago is different than “very big” in PG. Is anyone expecting a Chicago style “very big” here? I doubt it. I’m certainly not.

My question has still not been answered. Maybe you cannot. So ,why not just say so instead of giving me obvious generalities?

Relative to a million square foot

“There is empty capacity at the only two warehouse complexes in Prince George at any given moment throught out the year,”

I would hope so!!! What is it? 10% 30% 70%?

When I go grocery shopping I assume there will be goods there I am looking for. They have excess of produce in order to meet the convenience of shoppers. As a result, they typically overstock and have to discard product. Those who provide space are no different. There is more space than is required at any moment. Depending on the total available space and the most common single user need for space and turnaround time, healthy excess space might be 5% , 10% I would assume. That is not my business, so I will allow those in that business to tell me what it is. Just as we want a certain level of housing vacancy – 10% is too high, 4% getting healthy, 2% and lower very unhealthy causing price rises and loss of opportunity.

In addition, things change. Some buildings are the right buildings but in the wrong location. In Burnaby they changed a warehouse to a black box studio for movie sets. That is the way things work. PG is no different.

So, I asked what amount of space we currently have and how much the increase will be. Might as well make it the gross, then the net based on your projected change in use. If you do not have it, then IPG may. The old regional economic development office used to have those kinds of figures – warehousing, office, retail, manufacturing, etc. I have not seen that sort of information in sine IPOG took over.

"For every action there is a reaction."

Yes ... but it is not necessarily equal and opposite. Your statement implies that due to its normal association with Newton. Otherwise there would be no such thing as relative population increases, for instance.

Owl. Without going into to much detail, and excluding the lack of warehouse space in the recent month or so because of the CN Rail Strike, I would suggest to you that between Lantrans Warhouses on 1st Avenue, Interior Warehouses on River Road, and in the BC Rail Industrial Park, and a few smaller warehouses at the BCRail Industrial site that you have in excess of 100,000 sq ft of warehouse space sitting idle most of the year.

As long as rail cars are available for shpping ex Intercon Pulp and Northwood Pulp you would have an additional 60,000, sq ft.

Overall I would say that there is approx 320,000 sq ft of warehouse space available of which in the past couple of years, only about 50% of it has been utilized. With the addition of the 80,000 sq ft from the CN this will pull business away from Interior, and Lantrans.

The big grocery warehouses that used to be in Prince George years ago, such as Malkins on first Ave. which is now a storage facility for peoples personal effects, the Kelly Douglas warehouse in the BCR which was taken down a number of years ago, the Slade and Stewart warehouse on 1st Ave which was also demolished. These grocerys are now stored in warehouses in Vancouver, Edmonton, with overnight deivery to Prince George, and points West and North.

CN has distribution warehouses all over North America and is highly competitive in this business. They will build this warehouse in Prince George and sub contract it to an operator, who will compete with the local companies for the available business. Business that used to go through Interior,and Landtrans will now in all probabability go through the CN Facility with a negative effect for the others.

Bottom Line no net gain in jobs, some shifting of available business, and within a few years I suspect that one of the other warehouses will close.

You can rest assured that if this facility was to create a large number of jobs CN would have made it part of the announcement. As it was they stated

**How many people it will employ is still to be known, Were going to build it and develop it and base our staffing needs on what happens when thats done, it just to early to tell** Of course, why would anyone think that they would spend $20 Million and not know how many people they would need to run the operation. Give me a break.