"By the way that cash is supposed to be part of the 1 billion heading our way to offset the effects of the beetle infestation."

An article on the front page of today's Calgary Herald states:

"Ottawa has pledged $1 billion over 10 years on a national scale "

Alberta is seeking $100 million. Surprise of surprises, their beetles are mulitplying exponentially.

So, is this "national money" or "BC money"?

Clear messages would be VERY nice. Maybe it is just that the left hand (well, as far left as a Conservative Party will allow) does not know what the right hand is doing. Or maybe it is just a case of no hand knowing what it is doing.

BTW, good article.

Whatever happened to all those projects that did get funding? … and even those that did not and simply had some well intentioned people trying to pick up the ball, but it fizzled.

Whatever happened to the beetle boss? Is there still a boss? … and what is she or he a boss of?

Is any one single person or organization leading this thing? We need a leader who stands out and says "I am the leader … want information, want help, want to know what we are doing, want to know how well we are doing, etc. etc … just ask me and my co-workers” Or should I say “associates”?

I would love to know what the decision matrix of the MoF, and others who are responsible for assuring the continuing viability of all parts of this province, looks like.

Well folks, the bugs have evolved into "true" northerners... they are now all the way to the borders... South and East.

The only benefit that most of us will enjoy is the memory of what the forest looked like when it was green. Our kids will only get to see rust colors.

I doubt that the money ($billion) actually exists. As with most political reaction, it is much noise and diversion. There are more important agendas to be considered by our Eastern "overlords" and our concerns are of little consequence to them, smothered by blanket upon blanket of studies and discussions.

Our, once diligent and importantly effective, BC Forest Service seems to have disappeared much like the blackened pine needles.

The time for hand wringing is over... long over... somebody has to take the wheel.

IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT WE HAVE 5 OF THE MOST INCOMPITANT POLITITIONS (FED. & PROV.)IN THE COUNTRY. IT SEEMS NONE OF HAVE THE GUTS , THE DESIRE OR THE ABILITY TO STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM. COME ON SHIRLEY , PAT , JOHN , DICK AND JAY, ITS TIME FOR YOU TO GET THE LEAD OUT. YOU PEOPLE ARE ACTING LIKE MUSHROOMS . YOUR BOSSES ARE FEEDING YOU $HIT AND KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK. PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG COME OUT OF THE DARK AND ANNOUNCE THE START OF AT LEAST SOME THESE PROMISES. WE ARE GETTING TIRED OF THE B.S. AND ARE LOOKING FOR A CHANGE. QUIT HIDING,COME OUT AND MAKE SOME POSITIVE NOISE.

Quite right Ben!
Time to hit these overpaid puppets at the polls.That's about the only recourse and the only thing they understand!Each and everyone of them should have been gone a long time ago.This is what you get when you stay too long at the fair!
Dithering on the pine beetle issue shows just how truly useless they are.This is a B.C.problem and it needs to be fixed right here,now!
Start at the top with Gordon Campbell.He IS the problem.He is such a dictator that his minions are not even allowed to decide when to go to the potty without his ok!
It's time the liberal party devoured him!

I just came back from a few days in Lotusland .... what beetle problem? ... what economic woes??? Hammerhead cranes all over the place with restaurants jam packed at lunch and Tiffany's doing great business.

Finally took some pics of the Ferrari which usually sits on the streets accross from Joe Fortes' restaurant, right near the homeless taking turns manning the 711 corner.

Time to move the capital NORTH to distribute the wealth.

RIGHT ON OWL...
WE ARE THE ONES PAYING FOR THE BUS AND EVERYBODY DOWN SOUTH IS RIDING FOR FREE.

There could be a number of reasons why the Feds are taking a second look at giving $11 Million to the Airport Authority for this runway expansion.

(1) The Airport is owned by the Federal Government and leased to the Airport Authority and therefore they would be giving them money to expand their own Infrastructure. There may be some problem with this under the terms of the lease agreement, and maybe if they give money to Prince George they would have give it to the other 25 Airport Authoritys in Canada.

(2) We havent seen or heard of a specific Business Plan for this endeavour. We know that the $11Million loan from the Northern Trust Initiative will be paid back through the collection of the Airport Improvement Fees, however the money from the Province $11 Million and from the Fed $ 11 Million would be free and clear money.

Investing $33 Million to expand a runway on the basis of maybe, getting some spin off business from the Anchorage Airport is a long shot at best, and would take over 20 years to actually produce any jobs other than the original construction jobs, and maybe it would produce nothing.

We need a business plan so that we know this project is more than a pipe dream. It would be foolish to put this money into a huge expansion and then have it sit idle for the next 10 years. It is possible that this money could be better spent in some other area, that will have a better chance of producing some real results.

We are presenlty faced with lumber selling for $280.00 well below the $350.00 per 1000 FBM that kicks in the 15% tax on exports. In addition we have a downturn in the housing market in the USA, and of course we have all this surplus beetle killed timber sitting in the bush rotting.

I am not aware of any new capacity being built to harvest this timber, other than a small increase in pellets for export.

This is a major problem for the Central Interior, however I have yet to hear from anybody, politicians or otherwise, myself included what the solutions could be.

I love this country, province and town, don't you? We need more laws, taxes and rules. It aint being run right.

Free Northern BC should be the rally cry. lol

Its past time for confederation to accept its 11th province IMO.

The downturn in the United States housing market (which has a direct effect on our local economy) seems to be getting worse.

The following paragraph is from Reuters News.

NEW YORK, April 11 (Reuters) - Mortgage late payments and defaults reached record levels in the first quarter and may threaten the modest U.S. economic expansion seen this year, Moody's Economy.com said in a survey released on Wednesday.

Here is the link to the article if anyone is interested in reading it.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2007-04-11T223220Z_01_N11257672_RTRIDST_0_MORGTAGES-DEFAULTS-ECONOMY-COM.XML

The following paragraph is from another article on the state of the U.S. housing market/

The 2007 median price for an existing home likely will decline 0.7 percent to $220,300, the first drop since the real estate trade group began keeping records in 1968 and probably the first decline since the Great Depression, the association said. For new homes, the median price is projected to increase 0.4 percent to $246,200, the smallest gain since prices fell in 1991.

Here is the link to this article in case someone wants to read it,

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRhaVH17R58o&refer=home

It seems to me the "party on Garth" attitude in Prince George will soon end, and we will have to accept the reality of the challenges we are facing with the mountain pine beetle and the "adjustment" in the U.S. housing market.

While i am all in favour of anything that will give us more autonomy, power and control over our resources up here I dont see how seperating or any of the other political 'solutions' posted here are going to do a damnthing about the beetle or forestry in general. As a forester I can tell you that this beetle epidemic, like the last one, is going to run its course, regardless of anything we might do or might have done. We just have all the right conditions (and i mean ALL the right conditions all you global warming enthusiasts). What i want to know is what the govt. or anyone else CAN do about it.
I like the idea of airport expansions and widened highways (WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT ONE) but i dont know what these things will do to help us out of the falldown we are going to have (incidently, that falldown, predicted in the '80 s was going to happen regardless of beetle). If we need to diversify, then we always did. It has never been a good idea to live or die based on the US housing market. I like Owls pie in the sky idea about moving the capitol up here. While that isnt going to happen maybe we could get some head offices? We could get some new office buildings downtown and spruce up the place that way. Thats what i would like our MPs and MLAs to do. They might pull in that direction if we all asked them to. Maybe a cancer clinic and more operating room time for the hospital WHETHER OUR NUMBERS 'JUSTIFY IT" OR NOT! If the govt really thinks we are in trouble here then they should be willing to put their money where their mouths are, without justifying every penny. Thats what disaster relief type funding is for.
By the way, my children, and yours will not be staring at red forests, any more than we are looking at swathes of dead spruce from the '80's or hemlock from the looper. The pine being salvaged and harvested now will be replaced with spruce, fir and yes even pine for the future. What we are talking about in beetle terms is a 'falldown'. That is where the timber supply is temporarily insufficient to maintain current annual cut levels. It isnt permanent, and could be reduced by a number of management practices or even changes in lumber utilization technologies. While i do not doubt that a beetle falldown effect will occur, i suspect that the more dire forcasts are well doom and gloom rather than factual. Also, for the long term minded, the rapid loss of pine forests now will have a prosperity echo for PG in about 80 or 90 years when the trees planted now reach maturity. Not much good for the kids or grand kids but the next generation will be rolling in it (assuming of course that such things are still allowed).

Caranmacil: ..."Maybe a cancer clinic and more operating room time for the hospital WHETHER OUR NUMBERS 'JUSTIFY IT" OR NOT! If the govt really thinks we are in trouble here then they should be willing to put their money where their mouths are, without justifying every penny."

Right on, in my opinion! I could not agree more. You could have included the P.G. airport runway extension project! I wonder if an opinion site such as this one in Kamloops or Kelowna would elicit the same kind of protests against new federally and provincially funded projects of the sort that are routinely posted here?

From another headline story on Opinion250 today:

"The P.G. contingent was one of about a dozen civic groups to make presentations. Kamloops has requested assistance to extend its runway to 8,000 feet,..."

Obviously Kamloops believes very strongly in the merits of having its runway extended!

Kamloops may get the money and the job done before P.G. ever does - there is only so much money to go around: First come, first served.