BY KIEL GIDDENS
BC United Candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie
For decades, Prince George has been known as British Columbia’s Northern Capital, and this is mainly because of our community’s status as a health, education, social services, and economic services hub. However, it’s the wider region that generates the wealth that also sustains our community’s ability to thrive. We need the region, and at the same time, we have a key role in supporting the region’s success. So when Prince George struggles, so too does Northern B.C.
Canfor’s spring announcement of the shutdown of a production line at Northwood, and the permanent closure of Polar Sawmill in Bear Lake, has ripple effects across the region. The news was devastating for the 400 workers and their families who have been impacted. The ripples continue with impacts for the businesses seeing a decline, both directly and indirectly, in contracts and business activity.
Furthermore, as pointed out by COFI President & CEO Linda Coady, “The loss of high paying jobs, local tax revenue and relocation to new employment opportunities have lasting effects in rural communities.”
Yet, we’ve seen nothing of substance from an NDP government that remains, at best, ambivalent, and at worst, incompetent when it comes to northern economic matters. Canfor stated that the “cumulative impact of policy changes and increased regulatory complexity” were major factors. Instead of announcing an immediate response plan for workers involving the private sector, unions, and the community, the NDP instead chose to double-down on their approach to making hollow announcements.
This past January, the NDP Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation Brenda Bailey came to the BC Natural Resources Forum and announced a BC Jobs Manufacturing Fund. The fund’s website says there “will be a particular focus on helping the forestry sector retrofit and develop new, sustainable value-added business lines.” Yet, in January they had virtually nothing for investments in Prince George, and nothing for forestry-dependent communities like Houston, Fraser Lake, Bear Lake, or Mackenzie.
Still, in the last round of investments that was conveniently announced by the NDP within days of Canfor’s announcement, Minister Bailey bragged about a $250,000 investment in Prince George. The average forest sector salary in British Columbia is $106,000, so the minister’s announcement simply doesn’t move the needle as an economic tool to spur investment or to replace those lost jobs. This is the same minister who came to Prince George in spring of 2023 and said that “the North will be fine.” The NDP have failed to deliver a credible economic plan, and have taken northern B.C. for granted despite forecasting a higher take in forestry stumpage and natural gas royalties in their fiscal plan. Their empty announcements are a slap in the face to workers and businesses trying to make ends meet.
The NDP’s trend of failed leadership isn’t new. The government basically sat on its hands while mills have closed in places like Fraser Lake, Mackenzie, and Chetwynd, among others. British Columbia needs an economic plan, and particularly one that provides a path for fixing the uncertainty and red tape choking our natural resource sectors. The NDP initially opposed the major projects currently coming to completion, and Premier John Horgan tried moving his party to reluctant support.
These projects buoyed our northern B.C economy and overall provincial GDP through the pandemic. The NDP under David Eby have squandered the opportunity to ensure new large-scale projects were waiting in the wings. Instead of a diversified and competitive private-sector jobs plan, the NDP continue to expand government bureaucracy with 160,000 additional net new public sector positions over the last five years. This added cost is on the backs of an inflationary budget, and modelling from their own economic forecast council projecting dismal 0.5 per cent GDP growth this year.
There’s so much potential for a strong and diversified natural resource economy in the North, whether that’s in critical minerals, LNG, or a future renewed path for forestry. In January at the Natural Resources Forum, BC United Leader Kevin Falcon unveiled the BC United Resource Prosperity Plan to unlock B.C.’s low-carbon natural resource potential, generate new prosperity to support public services, and create jobs and paycheques to address the NDP’s cost of living crisis. This plan includes relocating the Ministry of Forests to Prince George ensuring that the people making decisions about our forestry sector come from forestry-dependent communities. British Columbia deserves a government that understands the responsible development of our natural resources, and even more importantly, understands that the North matters. United, we will fix it.