Consultants run the world. Kind of funny considering consultants have no stake in any project. The aloof objective view point never made a dream come true or made a necessary gamble. Logic has it's place.

Fortunately most of Canada and PG was established before consultants put a stop to all that building.

There is no gamble or dream in this Airport Extension. It will be built with taxpayers money, and if it is a complete flop, who will care??? It will be 10-20 years down the road, and by then we will have gone on to other ways of spending taxpayers dollars. Its easy to set up projects like this, when those doing it are not spending one red cent of their own money, nor are they getting any money from private enterprise, nor are they accountable over the long term.

It like the NTI office in Vancouver. Open the office, for two years, spend $44,000.00 and obtain nothing, and then get a commendation from the City for having the foresight to close it down.

The Prince Rupert Port Project is a little different. It has $30 Million from CN Rail, and $60 MIllion from Mayer Terminals (Private money) and something like $20 Million from taxpayers. If this project goes sour some companies stand to lose $80 Million. The same doesnt apply to the Airport Expansion.

I would like to know where people are getting the information that the Ted Stephens Airport in Anchorage is congested, or **stressed** certainly the people in Anchorage dont feel this way, and in fact are more than ready to expand to meet any future needs.

Is this information valid or is it hearsay and therefore **Balderdash**

"consultants have no stake in any project."

There are many types of consultants.

Those who are the hard core professionals, such as doctors, engineers, architects, chartered accountants and even, to some extent, lawyers carry error and omissions insurance. They provide professional advice which you can take or leave. If you take it, and they make mistakes which a prudent professional would not make, then they are liable for their actions.

In some cases, some lawyers will take a case on a contingency basis. They get nothing if they do not win the case.

Engineers and architects will get sued if their buildings, leak, collapse, and have other more minor problems.

Medical doctors are consultants as well, even though many people do not think of them in that fashion.

Any consultant who has error and omissions insurance is in a position to have a so called stake in the advice they give.

Then there are those who work in that nether world of never being able to pin anything on what they told you. They merely provide true OPINIONS which you are best to get two or three of if you have the money. There are also those, such as foresters, who will provide silvicultural prescriptions, but operate in such a multi-parameter world and one where the results will not be seen for decades, that it would have to be a most blatant error before one would be able to pin anything on their advice.

An opinion on whether a business investment is risky or not, and how risky it is falls under the latter. The parameters are too vast.

The persons most directly liable for a business decision in the case of an operation such as the airport are the manager, the chair of the Board, and the Board itself. They are the final decision makers. If they state that they will get certain businesses within the first 2 to 5 years, and that does not happen, then their jobs and positions may be in jeopardy. Of course, the manager obviously has the most to loose.

So why the consultant’s reports? Due diligence? Is it simply such as the case of the doctor who tells you that you are going to die, and you just want a second opinion? Or the bank who does not want to give you a loan, so you go to another bank and discover that they have different criteria for determining risk and they will give you the business loan.

It is the way of doing business today. People are gun shy. The guy in the deputy minister’s office does not want to get fired for funding a bad project. Or, worse still, he does not want to tell you he will not fund it, so he hires a consultant to write a report that will state the same and lets him/her off the hook.

"I would like to know where people are getting the information that the Ted Stephens Airport in Anchorage is congested, or **stressed** certainly the people in Anchorage dont feel this way"

When do you ever get the truth from a business about how well they are doing? A business which is overtaxed typically is not interested in admitting that they are not coping. What would they gain by doing so?

The people you ask such questions of are the users; the clients of the service provider. They will tell you what their needs are and whether their current service provider is doing a good job of meeting those needs.

I would think that it is some of those businesses who the airport appears to be saying are ready to sign up for some type of service for some agreed to term of time. Those clients may even be using that as a leverage to get Anchorage to provide better service, for all we know. One thing is for sure, if the service is needed, and they are not getting it, then someone will soon provide it. There are more players than just Anchorage and PG in the game.

Building planes takes a long time, and having longer range planes ready for everyone in the world at the same time is impossible. So, there will likely be a lag of a decade or so till everyone is set with a new set of wings. The business is flexible, and changes every ten years or so may be coming down the pipe.

For all I know, they might even want to think of commuter changes between Vancouver and PG being more efficient fuel wise with larger planes, less often, which require longer runways. Not as convenient for travelers, but likely less expensive.

Owl. I agree that the Consultants report may be the vehicle that the Federal and Provincial Government may use to **deep six** this project. It will be very difficult for the Airport Authority to set up a business case that would show that this operation is viable. Firstly with 1500 flights per year it will take 20 years to get back your initial investment. In addition if you dont come up with some very significant warehouse and distribution business, you end up being a landing, takeoff, and fueling station. That sort of an operation will generate very few jobs. 1500 flights per year is 4 per day.

I agree that the Airport Manager and others should be held responsible if this project turns out to be a bust, however I doubt very much that they would be. Mainly because they are appointed through a board of directors that are appointed by (a) The Federal Government (b) the Provincial Government (c) The City of Prince George, and (d) the Regional District.(e) Initiative Pr George. Furthermore if it takes 5 to 10 years to determine how things are going, those people who are presently pushing the project will have retired. Even if they havent retired, and they do get fired. Guess what. They will get a huge severence package, and probably get their pension bridged.

I dont see any risk here at all.

As I said sometime ago. This project is all about spending the $1,950,000.00 that is collected each year in Airport Improvement Fees, and has little if anything to do with reality. If they go through with the project Airport Improvement Fee's will stay at $15.00 per person or more for the next 20 years. They are not about to reduce this fee, or cancel it. So they have to keep coming up with projects to spend the money.

Owl. We can discuss this Airport Expansion until the cows come home and we will not solve any of the problems.

From my point of view it is nothing more than local people spending taxpayers money in an effort to appear to be doing something. If we cancelled the Airport Improvement Fees the project would be dead to-morrow. Its about spending money not about viable business projects.

It much the same as the Prince Rupert Port Project. The containers from Prince Rupert will come through Prince George and carry on to the USA without any fanfare.

Containers will be loaded here to Prince Rupert at the expense of the truckers who presently take this product to Vancouver, and there will be no net gain in jobs.

I cant wait for October to see the first Container train whistle through town, without having any effect on the **Great Airport Runway Expansion** that was initially going to be completed to coincide with the arrival of the first train.

I suspect I will have to wait much longer to see the commencement of wide body cargo jets arriving and departing Prince George, and of course much longer yet to see a warehouse and distribution centre.

I should live so long.

I hear Remple is hoping to start an industrial park on the west side of the airport, if the land comes out of the ALR.

Will that industrial park be of interest to the airline freighters? Seems like more private money is willing to get on board if the airport can offer a bigger runway.

If private investment is Papolpu indicator of viability, looks like it is just waiting for the runway. I think the egg came first.

Papolpu,

The question is never are they going to spend the money. The questions is where are they going to spend it. Maybe you would prefer the money be spent in the Lower Mainland or Quebec. Our taxes aren't going to get lowered if this project doesn't go through, we just won't get any infrastructure. Ben just posted asking what is driving the economy, noone knows, it is a house of cards, this project could be part of a new foundation. At very worst, we get an opportuntiy that doesn't work out.

So rather than urinate all over it, why not support it and thank them for trying to help our region with our tax dollars.

PS: If you have a better way to get some of our tax dollars spent in our region, please by all means do everything you can to get it done.

Travism: Thank God for your sane response to this "issue". I'm thankful that there are people who help to move our great city forward, and why shouldn't we support them. My goodness, imagine where we'd be if we listened to the negative people...perhaps we should all just pitch tents and live in the woods instead of trying to make this a more mature, livable and vibrant city. It take guts to be a leader with all of the mud-slingers who gleefully sit in their armchairs and criticize and try to trash.

Travism/Buzz. I dont have a problem with the Government giving us back our tax dollars to invest and to create jobs if possible. I do however have a problem when the project that is selected is a long shot at best, and could quite possibley never produce any jobs.

We would be much better off to have this money invested in tourism, or some other venture that would create jobs immediately, rather than some vague reference to 300 jobs 20 years down the road.

Buzz. Dont get confused between being negative, and being a cynic. They are two different things entirely. Another point you may want to consider is just because people dont see a situation the way you see it doesnt make them negative.

We have people in Ft St James, and Mackenzie, that have an acute shortage of doctors and this situation applies in other areas in the North Central Interior. Maybe this $36 Million could go to getting better facilities and more doctors, rather that having it spent on a huge chunk of concrete that may or may not be used by wide body cargo planes, and even if they do use it, the only ones making money will be (1) The Airport (2) The Oil Companies and (3) the Airlines. Nothing here for your local taxpayers.

It doesnt take any guts to spend taxpayers money. Governments do it all the time. What takes guts is to put your own money into these ventures, and take some risk. You might have noticed that there is no private money going into this venture.

We would be further ahead to spend this money on tree planting at least then we wuld be creating some jobs.