"as the downturn in the American economy is not going to change in the next three or four months.”

Try 2 - 3 yrs, Mr. Bell.

Why not look at developing the local economy. Many things could be done if we can get out of the single track mindset that economic development only happens if we find more markets for our resources.

Things that can be done:

In a national diversified economy, now would be the time for the federal government and provincial government to put money into improving infrastructure in this region whether it be power lines, bridges, a ring road, or a cancer clinic among the most obvious.

Eliminating organized gambling could inject $50 million dollars a year into the local economy, which is currently leaving this region in stupidity taxes.

The government could be facilitating long time residents some access to the land base for economic development in the way of tourism and new family farms with a plan towards the emerging containerization possibilities, rather then the current policy of blocking land acquisitions for locals and selling it all to outside money speculators. With all the abundance of lands around it is impossible to access any of it for free enterprise unless you have bags of money to pay the in crowd consultants, native bands, and integrated land management whims designed to make it a political process with bureaucrat unaccountable deciders.

When will this region have a meat packing plant?

Investment and promotion of this regions vast eco-tourism possibilities is abysmal and a complete failure, so there is always lots that can be done in that area, which coincidentally most senior government reports project could be the biggest employment growth opportunity for the North over the next decade. Pat Bell and Gary Offet however coined the term the red forest tourism crowd showing their disdain for this kind of sustainable economic development. We need infrastructure investments in parks as well as facilities, and we need an effective organization that can coordinate and market this eco-tourism specific sector.

2010 strategy does not exist for this region. We will all pay in real dollars and lost opportunities for the Olympics, which could be a huge opportunity for this region if we had a plan, but VANOC is the one making and approving all plans and they have no plan for the North. VANOC will not even allow the use of the year term ‘2010’ for promotion of anything other than the Olympics in the year 2010.

In the age of the internet and with a state of the art university in PG, the region has no plan to promote the knowledge economy in any form from incubation to coordination with the university and other regional potential synergies.

Outside of the downtown and neighbouring VLA area, PG is one of the safest cities in the world with the cleanest water and air (west, north & south of town); and yet this is not marketed at all at a time when the world is going to hell in a hand basket and these are great selling points for those with money looking for a great place to live.

At a time of obvious impending economic downturn across the entire continent (credit crunch) our city council is still looking at ways they can spend every last potential tax dollar. This makes no sense and we should be looking at reducing our expenses so we can be the competitive community, and not the bankrupt community coming out of the recession when investors will be looking at communities to make their investments in with an affordable tax rate.

I could go on all night, but the point is all our politicians have their heads in the sand talking about pie in the sky spin that PG is booming as a result of their fine work... the facts meanwhile are simply that we rode the free ride on the commodity price rise world wide and our corporations reaped as much as they could out of the Pine Beetle disaster.

Nothing was done to promote free enterprise, and nothing was done to diversify our economy in at least a decade.

From a European financial investment firms website:

Wood is a universal material. More and more households are switching from oil or natural gas heating to wood pellets heating systems.

Since 2006 the price of wood has increased by 40%.

The demand for paper is increasing steadily. The Finnish forestry advisory management firm Poyry advises that the demand for paper will increase by 36% by the year 2020.

Since 1960 the world's consumption of wood has more than tripled.

Americans are using 300kg per capita of paper and cardboard per year.

China's per capita consumption is presently only 30kg per capita per year, but increasing in leaps and bounds.

In 2006 India's consumption of wood rose by 20% compared to 2005.

In China the first of approximately 1.3 billion people have begun to properly equip their homes with furniture.

American investors have since the end of 2003 increased their investment in the forestry sector by 30% to 20 billion dollars.

Is Canada busy exploring all these trends or are we standing on the side lines?

Chander.

Prince George had a meat packing Plant in the late 40's early 50's. It was located along the Fraser River below the present grave yard.

It was closed down, and we began shipping Cattle to Edmonton for processing.

Pile-o-ancient-puo thats 'Chader' to you.

Diplomat those are interesting numbers. I wonder if you also have one for butt wipe, and how that translates to the 1.3 billion Chinese, or do they still use washable towels, or worse yet... I wonder if we could find a market for that with the beetle wood?

We need to spend more money on research and development learning how to cut down trees more economically.

Campbell on a trade mission to Asia? You mean a taxpayer paid holiday to Asia. Along with Kinsley, Campbell is a globe trotter on our nickel with no results from their so called trade missions.

BTW, Pretty much everything you buy is "Made in China" How the hell does that help B.C. A waste of time and money these trade missions.