A job for you and a job for me, maybe two, maybe three!

One of the interesting observations about a huge celebration such as Wednesday’s Grand Opening of the Container Port, is how people will get caught up in the excitement of such a momentous occasion and wander into the world of hyperbole to express their thoughts on what it all means.

Wednesday’s big day on the waterfront saw many participants and observers both here and afar, dust off their best speeches to proclaim the new era of prosperity and hope that has arrived.

Politicians and Real Estate observers seemed to be the ones with the best case scenario vision working on Wednesday, and that’s to be expected we suspect, as members of both those groups are probably well known for their abilities to accentuate and even amplify the positive if the need and occasion arises.

On the political front, the Premier Gordon Campbell predicted that Wednesday’s celebration heralded a new era for the North, with a bold prediction that with expansion of the port into phase two, that a bounty of opportunities will arrive in the next four years.

“It'll generate hundreds of jobs here in Prince Rupert," he said, with at least 2,000 direct and indirect jobs expected in the community by 2011.”

Speeches on Wednesday compared the new Fairview gateway to the Pacific as perhaps the most important transportation development since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened up Ontario and beyond to international shipping.

“Fifty years ago, Canada opened up Atlantic trade to North America with investments in the St Lawrence Seaway. Today, we are beginning to see investments and even greater opportunity as we open up trade corridors linking the growing Asian economies with North America through Canada’s Pacific Gateway,”

Over at the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business they pulled out the abacus to calculate job opportunities in Prince Rupert, with a report from that paper’s Real Estate reporter Lori McLeod.

In a story about hot locations across Canada, she provided a quick peek at Prince Rupert that was very bullish on the community, even if it was a tad factually incorrect. The Globe seemed to get their details wrong a bit, stating that CN broke ground on Wednesday on the new port (uhm, that would make for a pretty fast construction timeline from ground breaking to opening in less than a day!)

But even more interesting was the declaration that the new port will provide for 1,000 jobs created a year (no time line as far as how many years was given, but if jobs are like compound interest, the possibilities boggle the mind)

“Canadian National Railway Co.'s shipping operations could also lure residents to Prince Rupert. Yesterday CN broke ground on a new container terminal there expected to create 1,000 new jobs a year. North America's closest port to Asia by sailing distance, the Port of Prince Rupert will serve as a hub for exports including grain, coal, and iron ore.”

With a sales job such as these, we have visions of easterners abandoning their homes, crossing the prairies in caravans heading for these sunny mountain coasts (well sunny this week anyways) looking for their share of this new Canadian dream.

.

And while nobody will deny that this new world port on our coast is going to change the dynamic of Prince Rupert for the future, it’s all a matter of how the growth is planned and evolves in timing, that will determine if these bold predictions come true. There is still a lot of ground to make up from the job losses of the last five years on the North coast and that kind of a dramatic turn around doesn't happen overnight.

Perhaps those from afar, like the residents already hunkered down on the north coast and waiting for the promised boom, may wish to wait a bit to see if some of the gold being talked about these days pans out as advertised. Patiently waiting to see if actual opportunities come to match the positive vibes being put out on Wednesday.