Once pine beetle wood has been used up everywhere else Mack will boom as it has a longer term wood supply.

In the meantime, if your the last person in town, don't forget to shut off the light when you leave.

Killam has a good, positive attitude and that's a good thing,although I am not sure that it is shared by a lot of the unemployed.
Understandable.
As Killam says,the situation does put a lot more emphasis on the Mt.Milligan mine and other possibilities, like the connector road between Fort St. James and MacKenzie.
Both these projects have the potential to make a major difference,even if they are still a long way off yet.
And any Killam is also right,any "green" projects that also generate employment are also a good thing and well worth looking at.
An email blitz on the politicians and government would also help to shake them up a bit and raise the profile of any possible solutions available.
Better days are coming but in the meantime,make some noise anyway you can!
We know the goverment may not be able to fix the situation itself,but there is an election coming and that gives a bit of power back to the voters when help is needed!

the mayor is right.... mayors are always right, aren't they? The problem is, I want a paycheck now... to continue living in this 'affordable' little town. Hmmmm, maybe I'll just collect welfare, until the town 'recovers'.............

It is all well and fine for the positive (propaganda) spin Mrs. Killam is putting on the situation here in Mackenzie but reality is a lot of people here have already lost thier vehicles and houses and a lot more will be loosing thiers in the very near future. These people and more now that Canfor is closing, don't have the time or finances to wait for Mrs. Killam's pet project(s) to come to fruition, so who will be left to take those jobs Steph?

As far as the people from Tumbler Ridge and Fort McMurray moving here, they aren't even a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who have left and now that school is pretty much done will be leaving. Take your head out of the clouds and face reality, people here CAN NOT WAIT TWO YEARS they can't even hold on another six months. Take a real look at the number of UHauls and moving trucks heading out of town each week and tell me everything will be ok.

I would also like to know what happened with the bids yesterday for P&T, if one is accepted and P&T starts back up, does that mean Canfor has to restart too, and if so are they going to have anyone left in town to be able to run?

I have lived in Mackenzie a lot of years and I can remember when the Unions were accussed and chided for devastating the town for all going on strike at the same time and being on strike for months on end. Well the Forest companies have devastated this town more so with all these closures, and that seems to be quite acceptable. It's ok, in another couple of years things will turn around, right Steph?

I can also remember when the P&T mill and the Canfor mill were BC Forest Products and ran in coopertion with each other and the tree farm licences were tied to the mill(s). Maybe things need to go back to their original configuration. I realize there are global contributing factors but you know what THERE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN even 30+ years ago. So using that excuse is getting more than a little tiring.

It's time to get past all the bull dung and start looking seriously at what needs to be done to bring at least one saw/planer mill back on line and I realize P&T is in the hands of the trustees but hopefully it will come back online too. At that point you still have some people working and helping the town survive and then work from there for the other projects that will be coming down the line in the next year or two.

But the only way to do that is to get past the bull dung, quit using the same old excuses and ALL parties involved need to work with JUST THE COLD HARD FACTS and come up with a working plan and go from there. That means Company, Union, Contractors, Municipality etc. But to do this it has to be on a level playing field with no one holding anyone hostage or dictating to the others. This is the only way it would work and that is exactly why it will never happen.

Join the police force. When the economy goes down, crime goes up! Good money there.

We chose to live in Mackenzie because great paying jobs were here at one time and it is a good place to raise children ! We never moved here to have to commute to work from Fort Mac or Tumbler or Sparwood or Grand Cache! What a crappy life that is! Esp when it has to be done in a snow blizzard in the middle of winter. No thanks. If we leave the whole family leaves! I am sure many feel the same way as I do!
As for Tourism , what a HUGE joke.. Tourism in Mackenzie is NOT going to provide jobs to the 1500 plus unemployed! Be realistic! You need to focus on creating jobs in Mackenzie. Tourism in Mackenzie only makes a couple city councilors be able to write off their toys!!!

My prediction for Mackenzie in the near future:

Come this fall nothing will have happened to change things mostly because the market will not change by then, and the other processes underway will not change by then. As a result families will be faced will losing their homes over the winter, or cutting their loses and leaving town before the school year to minimize the disruption to their lives. Most will lose all their home equity because how do you sell a house you owe $150,000 on, and now its only worth $40,000?

Over the winter as homes don't sell, as they drop in value, and EI at 25% your previous pay just doesn't fill the gap... Mackenzie begins to look like Tumbler Ridge a decade ago. Tourism will not fill this gap not even a minuscula half percent of the gap.

A year out as EI runs out it is likely the situation still might not be resolved. Meanwhile almost every home owner in Mackenzie that was leveraged for home ownership will lose everything at this point unless the banks renegotiate principle forgiveness deals of some sort (but that will never happen)... so the banks will then take possession of the towns homes and lands in large scale and they will simply auction the community off to the highest bidder.

A shrewd home owner might take the bank to task and negotiate a settlement of maybe 40% their current mortgage if they intent to stay long term? Thats what I would try to do. Its the banks fault for allowing the home speculation business of recent years to take place in the first place.

At the auction for the community you will have the flippers for sure, you'll have the retiring poor, and you'll even have some long term investors. Some will by vacation homes for wilderness tourism outings possibly (especially if the connector to Powder King for snowmobiles goes ahead), others will buy homes because they will sit on them until the economy fires up again.

In no less then 5-years Mackenzie will likely become a modern day gold rush city of the Tumbler Ridge 1980's, or Barkerville 1880's variety. Suddenly its a town with excellent infrastructure in place that is located in the only viable long term 20-years out fiber supply area, with affordable homes and the mining industry kicking into gear, and the new connector to the Fort building synergies with their common neighbor, and tourism is now established partially as a result of the towns previous collapse, and then the service industry starts to follow the primary industry... and in 10-years suddenly its a city that is much larger and more viable than it ever was in the past, and its future is no longer in doubt.

Just my guess, but for the people of the next 2-years Mackenzie they are in a circumstance of external forces they have no control over in the short term; and as such are at the mercy of market forces local and abroad... and these market forces are not in their favor. Its a tough call for those people what to do next... I know I would be insulted by an offer for a plane trip out of province to work as a peon income tax slave, but it may be the only option at this point if they intent to hold out for the long run.

Personally I blame the BC liberal forest tenure policy for opening the door to this if it turns into a long term problem. If not then their policies will still need to be fixed if Mackenzie is to recover whole again. I don't think the premier much cares about the collateral damage to his policies as long as he can still sell them down south and still receive his corporate financial contributions to his political agenda developing the 604.

We need some leadership in this province and we need it now! I hear from an ex resident from Prince Rupert that raw log export has become quite a pofitable business in our fine province of B.C.Why is it that we allow our government to export our resources? Us tax slaves pay their wages to put us out of work. I think everyone should have a look around and remember the track record of our government and their treatment of human beings.Look what they did to the First Nations and it took how many????? years to apologize!!!!! Getting closer to home, I wonder how positive the mayor would be if she wasn't getting her salary.