The latest report on the potential for the British Columbia shipping industry certainly makes one think of the Pogues fabled tale; Fairytale of New York, all is possible it seems, though one wonders if reality may in the end sing a different tale, much like the principles of the Pogues tune eventually found.
For now, an internal BC Government study is promising a bounty of jobs for West Coast ports and suggests a blue print for the future of Canadian trade with Asian destinations.
The Vancouver Sun’s Miro Cernetig managed to get a copy of the report and provides a detailed look at where the government thinks we are heading. It’s sure to be one of those articles we find pasted in the windows of realtors eager to spread the news and stoke the market a little further..
B.C. port study predicts 500,000 new jobs by 2020: Asian trade could grow by $230-billion per year if governments unite to build ports
Miro Cernetig
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
VICTORIA -- Canada's economy could generate a bonanza of $230-billion a year in increased trade and as many as 500,000 new jobs by 2020 if the country's governments unite to build up West Coast ports, promote Asian trade and foster cultural ties with the Asia Pacific, predicts a B.C. government study.
Now being quietly circulated within the B.C. cabinet, the analysis is the heart of the provincial government's blueprint for a multi-billion-dollar expansion in West Coast ports, Vancouver's international airport, and rail and road links to and from the West Coast.
It's also a politically well-timed sales pitch designed to generate national debate about Canada's Asian future.
With a federal election possible in the months ahead, the document prompts the question of how fast to build up Canada's "Pacific Gateway" to Asia, and puts pressure on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Stephane Dion to spell out how many billions they are willing to commit to the mega-project. Up to now, the federal government has formally earmarked about $590 million, an amount that Premier Gordon Campbell has called only a down payment of the billions more he believes are needed.
Called the "Asia Pacific Initiative: British Columbia's vision", the internal government document obtained by The Vancouver Sun foresees Canada increasing immigration from Asia and deepening cross-cultural ties, particularly in tourism and education. Likely to be made public by the time of the next federal election, the B.C. government intends the document to be a call to British Columbians and Canadians to fast-track their Asian ambitions to catch up to other countries, such as Australia, which adopted similar national strategies more than a decade ago.
"We will bring together the province's political, business and cultural leaders to lead an aggressive campaign to position the province as the preeminent economic and cultural crossroads between Asia and North America," says the document.
The B.C. strategy lays out ambitious plans to more than triple Canada's current $100 billion in annual trade with the Asia Pacific by 2020. It focuses on China, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and other economies on the continent.
It also echoes Premier Gordon Campbell's mantra in recent months that building up B.C. as "Canada's Pacific Gateway" in the 21st century will be as significant economically to the country as the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the last century. In the new year, he will be telling all who listen that Canada must move quickly to exploit its chance to be a Pacific Rim player, particularly to seize the booming global trade of shipping containers.
"British Columbia has developed the Asia Pacific Initiative to ensure that Canada is fully maximizing B.C.'s Pacific Gateway advantages to secure the economic future of the nation," says the report. "We have set a 2020 goal to position British Columbia internationally as North America's capital for Asia Pacific commerce and culture."
The study, which Premier Campbell is now reviewing during his vacation in Hawaii, cautions that nobody has put together a date to fully predict the impact of such a national investment. The authors said they are relying "on a combination of existing economic impact assessments such as the Port Vancouver Economic Impact Study and the Vancouver International Airport Economic Impact studies, as well as market share and foreign direct investment analyses between B.C./Canada and the major Asian markets."
It also assumes that growth in Asia will continue largely unabated, with no major regional economic meltdown or global recession that could set the Asian economies back significantly.
But its authors have told the B.C. cabinet that the predictions are "conservative," even if they seem staggering.
"The potential employment gain for British Columbia from achieving the Asia Pacific Initiative objectives is 55,000 direct jobs by 2020 for the gateway as a whole," the report states. "Of these jobs, some 35,000 are attributable to Asia Pacific activity.'
But the report suggests the spin-offs are even greater.
"It must be recognized that the gateway also supports a much broader economy in the downstream industries that are suppliers to the gateway [e.g. airport retail sector] and major upstream industries such as manufacturing, mining, forestry and agriculture that rely on the gateway for market access," the analysis said. "If these broader employment impacts are considered, there may be another 200,000 jobs at stake in B.C. for a total 2020 impact of 255,000 gateway jobs. To put this in perspective, it is more than the entire manufacturing sector employment in B.C. today."
On a national level, the report suggest Canadians would benefit even more.
"For Canada, the job impact may be as high as 500,000 jobs -- extremely significant when compared to other sectors," predicts the report.
"For example, [in 2005] Canada's entire transportation and warehousing sector is responsible for 800,000 jobs; agriculture 350,000 jobs; and forestry, fishing, mining and oil and gas combined is 300,000 jobs."
"The trade and investment effects of the gateway are also significant," the report adds. "The 2020 gain in goods and services trade is estimated to be about $230 billion for Canada, of which $76 billion accrues to British Columbia. Of the $76 billion, $45 billion is associated with increased exports and $31 billion is in increased imports. The scale of this impact is the equivalent of 50 per cent of B.C.'s existing trade activity of $153 billion."
mcernetig@png.canwest.com
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Showing posts with label BC Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BC Economy. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Premier’s road show selling B. C.’s coast as a transportation destination
The Prime Minister may have a hard time getting an audience with Chinese officials, but not so the Premier of British Columbia. Gordon Campbell has been touring China and other parts of Asia for the last couple of weeks, selling the merits of British Columbia as a place for Asia to do business. He’s been rather emphatic about the potential of the two ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert as he goes from town to town selling the province as THE must go to kind of place.
Campbell will no longer be considered the Willy Loman of traveling premiers, that after reports of the reception he has received get back to the home office.
The Daily News took advantage of Canwest News Miro Cerentig’s seat on the plane and reprinted a Vancouver Sun piece from the weekend, making it the headline story in the Tuesday paper. Cernetig who has been tagging along for a number of weeks now has been posting regularly to the Sun and Canwest on the future impact of containers for Asia and North American trade. You can also follow his time on the Campbell-a-looza tour 2006 with a number of entries on his Asia-Canada relations blog.
Tuesday’s page one Headline story focuses on the vision that the Premier has for British Columbia and its place in the world of international trade.
Campbell selling Pacific dream on his tour of Asia
Premier in China to share his vision of massive ports on B. C.’s West Coast
By Miron Cernetig
Can West News Service
The Daily News
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Pages one and two
From Marco Polo to today's legion of BlackBerry-toting venture capitalists, people have long made their pilgrimages to China with dreams of striking it rich. Today Gordon Campbell is in Shanghai with one of his own.
The dream of British Columbia's premier is this: Convince China that Canada's westernmost province is destined to become one of the Pacific Rim's great ports, one that this country of 1.3 billion people simply cannot afford to ignore.
"We need to be here in China, to trade," says Campbell, who will spend the next week on tours of Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and around the province of Guangdong, one of China's white-hot coastal economies. "This isn't just for B.C., it's for Canada. We've got to be part of what's going on over here, this will be worth billions and billions of dollars to our future economy."
But in China, the emerging economic Colossus now courted by the world and clearly irritated with Canada's recently rekindled focus on human rights, one needs to offer more than just words to get the regime's attention.
So Campbell has invested much of his political capital -- along with $15 billion and counting of federal, provincial and private funds -- to sell a vast concept he is sure China's regime will be unable to resist: a massive development of Canada's West Coast into what is dubbed Canada's Pacific Gateway.
Few British Columbians have yet grasped the full magnitude -- or cost -- of this idea. Too often it is overly simplified: a plan for road upgrades here, the building up of a few docks there, perhaps a few more bridges to ease congestion in and of Greater Vancouver, the settlement of aboriginal land claims to help pave the way for port development, a few hundred hectares extracted out of B.C.'s agricultural land reserve for industrial land development.
But that's missing the big picture.
A few days before winging over the Pacific, B.C.'s premier was in his office, hunched over a map of the province on his coffee table. What he outlined is the equivalent of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the megaproject that transformed the national economy more than 50 years ago.
Thump. The premier's index finger landed on Prince Rupert, high on the curve of B.C.'s rugged and mostly empty west coast.
Now just a dot on the map, Prince Rupert could soon become a major port that can load and unload two, three or perhaps even four million containers, every year, he said. That would be more than double all the containers now handled annually by all Canada's West Coast ports. Prince Rupert's container capacity at the moment? Zero.
Another thump. The finger landed on Prince George.
That is destined to become an inland port, he says, where the Pacific Rim's jumbo jets can land to unload their cargo. Alaska is running out of capacity, said Campbell.
The finger landed again. Kitimat. It, too, is an underutilized deep water port that may soon well be the future terminus of pipelines from Canada's oil fields. Liquefied gas and other petroleum products could be channeled through it to the west, where supertankers will wait to take it to energy-hungry Asia.
Thump. The finger touched the middle of the Rockies, on Kicking Horse Canyon. That is where a $1-billion project is underway to build a bridge and to bore tunnels through the mountains, to speed up the east-west passage deeper into the continent.
Thump. Finally his finger landed on the urban pocket of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. It must have more loading docks, he said, better highways, more and bigger bridges and improved rail systems so that China, and the rest of the world, will send their precious containers through Canada's western ports.
Campbell paused and looked up from the map.
"Frankly, the order of magnitude of our imagination is too small here."
He was reminded his own strategists have already set ambitious goals. In its Pacific Gateway Strategy Action Plan, released in April, the B.C. government sets out a 15-year plan to boost the number of containers handled by West Coast ports from today's roughly two million containers to about nine million by 2020. That would give Canada about a 17-per-cent share of the 52 million containers that North America's Pacific ports are expected to handle annually by 2020, about double what it is today.
That could have enormous economic spinoffs -- about $6.6 billion more annually to the Canadian economy, $4.7 billion of which would stay in B.C. and the creation of 45,000, high-paying jobs.
But not enough, said Campbell.
"I say we're aiming too low," he said. "I say we should go bigger . . . The emergence of the Asian economies in the early 2000s is the same thing as the emergence of the European economies 50 years ago."
Yet there is an echo of an old, almost forgotten and nearly discarded dream in all this.
Almost a century ago, the railroad tycoon Charles Melville Hays had a similar dream. He looked at the same deep waters of Prince Rupert as Campbell does now, noting the port is two to four days closer to southeast Asia then anything else on the West Coast. Hays dreamed he could build a railroad and create a great port city. But he went down with the Titanic, in 1912, and with it, at least until now, so did that dream.
B.C. must 'act fast'
"We've got a lot of catching up to do. And we've got to act fast."
That sobering warning comes from Gordon Chu, who is also in China, helping the premier sell the dream. He's the senior advisor to the Vancouver Airport Authority, a Chinese-Canadian businessman who counts China's booming province of Guangdong as his ancestral home.
Chu was asked by Campbell to come up with a no-holds barred assessment of B.C.'s status in China and other Asian markets. In April, Chu concluded B.C., and Canada, are in danger of missing out on what might be the biggest shift in world trade this century.
One of Chu's chief criticisms is that after an early, somewhat concerted effort, to seize a share of Asian trade in the 1980s and 1990s, B.C. governments of all stripes dropped the ball.
In the mid-1990s, BC Trade, the Crown agency that at its peak had a budget for trade promotion of about $20 million annually and 150 staff members, began to suffer deep cuts. Trade offices were slowly closed. It was Campbell, himself, who pulled the plug on some of the last remaining trade offices in Asia.
"Of course, a variety of provincial and national trade missions have occurred since the 1980s, although not always with sufficient follow-up or clear results," concluded Chu's report of the China/Hong Kong Market Advisory Group. "Indeed, B.C. has had a history of brief engagements with the China market rather than a consistent set of policies and connections."
Part of the move away from an Asian focus was due to the free trade agreement with the United States. "Since the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement came into force in 1989," the report notes, "B.C. exports to the U.S. have grown by 178 per cent . . . In contrast, B.C.'s exports to the Asia Pacific fell by 7.5 per cent over the 10-year period from 1996 to 2005."
The fixation on trade with the U.S. was understandable. In the 1990s, Japan, B.C.'s biggest export market outside of North America, was sliding into decline. And the currency crisis that hit most of southeast Asia in the later 1990s both weakened it as an export market and soured investors' confidence in the region. Free trade with the U.S. seemed far more profitable.
But that era now looks like it may be coming to an end.
One of the worrying factors is that the United States is actively seeking free trade agreements with other nations, particularly those on the Pacific Rim itself. Washington has signed a free trade agreement with Australia, for example, one of Canada's major competitors in most of its export markets. And the U.S. is moving toward more deals in the region. The most recent talks were with Vietnam.
"It is important to remember that Canada's advantageous access to the U.S. market will not last forever," warns Chu's report.
China, too, is following the same trend toward bilateral trade deals. And Canada, for the most part, isn't on Beijing's radar screen.
"Beijing is in discussion on possible FTAs with India, Chile, Singapore, South Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council, and there is speculation on potential direct or indirect arrangements with Japan and South Korea," noted Chu's report. "Interestingly, Canada does not appear on this list."
It's not good news. But one way of getting there is for Canada to build up a world-class system of West Coast ports and the railways and highways that connect seamlessly into the North American economy and what shippers call "the global supply chain."
Yet even here, all is not well for Canada and British Columbia.
The so-called Pacific Gateway has begun to show the strain of handling China's booming container traffic. In 2004, a government report noted, "the North American marine and land transport system was near collapse during peak season. Issues of congestion were compounded by a tug boat strike that paralyzed container terminals in the Lower Mainland. The response was immediate -- container carriers began to divert vessels to ports in the U.S. Pacific Northwest."
Last year wasn't much better. The flow of containers from China again soared, up more than 12 per cent over the previous year. "The railroad network capacity was the first part of the chain to break down during this period," Chu's report notes. "These events have eroded the confidence that B.C. businesses have spent years building with overseas customers. They have also come at a time when U.S. rival ports are rapidly increasing capacity. Major importers, such as Wal-Mart, have publicly stated that Vancouver is unreliable, and have begun rerouting their cargo to other points-of-entry."
If anyone thinks that's an exaggeration, they only had to be in the ballroom of a Tokyo hotel a few days ago. B.C.'s premier was standing in front of a giant map of his Gateway dream and was enthusiastically pitching it to a group of Japanese businessman.
Then Shuji Horimito, an importer-exporter who runs Wing International Trading Inc., stood up and asked the question that haunts those who back the Pacific Gateway.
"Premier, can you do anything about this strikeage?" asked Horimito, getting a smile for the new word he used for labour disputes.
Six years ago, 100 per cent of his exports to Asia, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, were from Canada, mostly from B.C., he explained. Now it's about 60 per cent. While B.C. ports might be closer to Asia, he said, the advantage evaporates with any delays in the "global supply chain."
"People want on-time delivery," he said. "When they don't get it every time, they go to other markets and other ports. And then it's very tough to get them back. This is the reality of the global market."
Skyscrapers everywhere
Dusk is settling over Shanghai and B.C.'s premier is on the top floor of a towering skyscraper, on his first night in China after an absence of three years. As the purple, green and red neon lights begin to illuminate Shanghai's skyline, he marvels that the skyscrapers quite literally stretch to the horizon in every direction.
A little more than a decade ago, most of this land below, known as Pudong, was rice paddies. Now, it is one of the world's fastest growing business centres near one of the planet's biggest ports. It's a good perch to get a sense that China is taking the world economy, and its traditional economic players, to an unprecedented future.
"I don't think you can understand this if you're not here," says Campbell, peering out the window. "The growth is just phenomenal."
But Campbell's awe also comes laced with a sense of urgency. While promoting the Pacific Gateway in China as a fait accompli, he knows the dream depends on quick moves by Canada before competing nations fill the void.
There's a long list of things to do on his side of the Pacific. He needs to continue pressuring the federal government to at least match the billions of dollars B.C. is pumping into the Pacific Gateway's development. Railways will need to be upgraded and, in many cases in the Lower Mainland, rerouted so people will accept more and longer trains, some three kilometers in length, as they trundle through bedroom communities.
More major aboriginal treaties will need to be signed, particularly with the Tsawwassen Indian band, which sits on valuable coastal land that will be needed in the expansion of the Roberts Bank superport. That deal is expected to be initialed and put to a vote by B.C., Ottawa and the Tsawwassen soon after the premier flies back to Vancouver.
And finally, there will be environmental concerns, as the government prepares to take out hundreds of hectares of valuable agricultural land. It will be transformed into port facilities, not unlike (though on a smaller scale) what happened to the rice paddies that once existed 46 floors below the premier.
But it's all progress, believes Campbell, and B.C.'s destiny. As he looks out at the window at China's economic miracle, he has some some advice for British Columbians in what he calls the Pacific Century.
"The world is changing," he says. "You can't do much to change that. You have to be part of it."
mcernetig@pngcanwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Campbell will no longer be considered the Willy Loman of traveling premiers, that after reports of the reception he has received get back to the home office.
The Daily News took advantage of Canwest News Miro Cerentig’s seat on the plane and reprinted a Vancouver Sun piece from the weekend, making it the headline story in the Tuesday paper. Cernetig who has been tagging along for a number of weeks now has been posting regularly to the Sun and Canwest on the future impact of containers for Asia and North American trade. You can also follow his time on the Campbell-a-looza tour 2006 with a number of entries on his Asia-Canada relations blog.
Tuesday’s page one Headline story focuses on the vision that the Premier has for British Columbia and its place in the world of international trade.
Campbell selling Pacific dream on his tour of Asia
Premier in China to share his vision of massive ports on B. C.’s West Coast
By Miron Cernetig
Can West News Service
The Daily News
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Pages one and two
From Marco Polo to today's legion of BlackBerry-toting venture capitalists, people have long made their pilgrimages to China with dreams of striking it rich. Today Gordon Campbell is in Shanghai with one of his own.
The dream of British Columbia's premier is this: Convince China that Canada's westernmost province is destined to become one of the Pacific Rim's great ports, one that this country of 1.3 billion people simply cannot afford to ignore.
"We need to be here in China, to trade," says Campbell, who will spend the next week on tours of Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and around the province of Guangdong, one of China's white-hot coastal economies. "This isn't just for B.C., it's for Canada. We've got to be part of what's going on over here, this will be worth billions and billions of dollars to our future economy."
But in China, the emerging economic Colossus now courted by the world and clearly irritated with Canada's recently rekindled focus on human rights, one needs to offer more than just words to get the regime's attention.
So Campbell has invested much of his political capital -- along with $15 billion and counting of federal, provincial and private funds -- to sell a vast concept he is sure China's regime will be unable to resist: a massive development of Canada's West Coast into what is dubbed Canada's Pacific Gateway.
Few British Columbians have yet grasped the full magnitude -- or cost -- of this idea. Too often it is overly simplified: a plan for road upgrades here, the building up of a few docks there, perhaps a few more bridges to ease congestion in and of Greater Vancouver, the settlement of aboriginal land claims to help pave the way for port development, a few hundred hectares extracted out of B.C.'s agricultural land reserve for industrial land development.
But that's missing the big picture.
A few days before winging over the Pacific, B.C.'s premier was in his office, hunched over a map of the province on his coffee table. What he outlined is the equivalent of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the megaproject that transformed the national economy more than 50 years ago.
Thump. The premier's index finger landed on Prince Rupert, high on the curve of B.C.'s rugged and mostly empty west coast.
Now just a dot on the map, Prince Rupert could soon become a major port that can load and unload two, three or perhaps even four million containers, every year, he said. That would be more than double all the containers now handled annually by all Canada's West Coast ports. Prince Rupert's container capacity at the moment? Zero.
Another thump. The finger landed on Prince George.
That is destined to become an inland port, he says, where the Pacific Rim's jumbo jets can land to unload their cargo. Alaska is running out of capacity, said Campbell.
The finger landed again. Kitimat. It, too, is an underutilized deep water port that may soon well be the future terminus of pipelines from Canada's oil fields. Liquefied gas and other petroleum products could be channeled through it to the west, where supertankers will wait to take it to energy-hungry Asia.
Thump. The finger touched the middle of the Rockies, on Kicking Horse Canyon. That is where a $1-billion project is underway to build a bridge and to bore tunnels through the mountains, to speed up the east-west passage deeper into the continent.
Thump. Finally his finger landed on the urban pocket of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. It must have more loading docks, he said, better highways, more and bigger bridges and improved rail systems so that China, and the rest of the world, will send their precious containers through Canada's western ports.
Campbell paused and looked up from the map.
"Frankly, the order of magnitude of our imagination is too small here."
He was reminded his own strategists have already set ambitious goals. In its Pacific Gateway Strategy Action Plan, released in April, the B.C. government sets out a 15-year plan to boost the number of containers handled by West Coast ports from today's roughly two million containers to about nine million by 2020. That would give Canada about a 17-per-cent share of the 52 million containers that North America's Pacific ports are expected to handle annually by 2020, about double what it is today.
That could have enormous economic spinoffs -- about $6.6 billion more annually to the Canadian economy, $4.7 billion of which would stay in B.C. and the creation of 45,000, high-paying jobs.
But not enough, said Campbell.
"I say we're aiming too low," he said. "I say we should go bigger . . . The emergence of the Asian economies in the early 2000s is the same thing as the emergence of the European economies 50 years ago."
Yet there is an echo of an old, almost forgotten and nearly discarded dream in all this.
Almost a century ago, the railroad tycoon Charles Melville Hays had a similar dream. He looked at the same deep waters of Prince Rupert as Campbell does now, noting the port is two to four days closer to southeast Asia then anything else on the West Coast. Hays dreamed he could build a railroad and create a great port city. But he went down with the Titanic, in 1912, and with it, at least until now, so did that dream.
B.C. must 'act fast'
"We've got a lot of catching up to do. And we've got to act fast."
That sobering warning comes from Gordon Chu, who is also in China, helping the premier sell the dream. He's the senior advisor to the Vancouver Airport Authority, a Chinese-Canadian businessman who counts China's booming province of Guangdong as his ancestral home.
Chu was asked by Campbell to come up with a no-holds barred assessment of B.C.'s status in China and other Asian markets. In April, Chu concluded B.C., and Canada, are in danger of missing out on what might be the biggest shift in world trade this century.
One of Chu's chief criticisms is that after an early, somewhat concerted effort, to seize a share of Asian trade in the 1980s and 1990s, B.C. governments of all stripes dropped the ball.
In the mid-1990s, BC Trade, the Crown agency that at its peak had a budget for trade promotion of about $20 million annually and 150 staff members, began to suffer deep cuts. Trade offices were slowly closed. It was Campbell, himself, who pulled the plug on some of the last remaining trade offices in Asia.
"Of course, a variety of provincial and national trade missions have occurred since the 1980s, although not always with sufficient follow-up or clear results," concluded Chu's report of the China/Hong Kong Market Advisory Group. "Indeed, B.C. has had a history of brief engagements with the China market rather than a consistent set of policies and connections."
Part of the move away from an Asian focus was due to the free trade agreement with the United States. "Since the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement came into force in 1989," the report notes, "B.C. exports to the U.S. have grown by 178 per cent . . . In contrast, B.C.'s exports to the Asia Pacific fell by 7.5 per cent over the 10-year period from 1996 to 2005."
The fixation on trade with the U.S. was understandable. In the 1990s, Japan, B.C.'s biggest export market outside of North America, was sliding into decline. And the currency crisis that hit most of southeast Asia in the later 1990s both weakened it as an export market and soured investors' confidence in the region. Free trade with the U.S. seemed far more profitable.
But that era now looks like it may be coming to an end.
One of the worrying factors is that the United States is actively seeking free trade agreements with other nations, particularly those on the Pacific Rim itself. Washington has signed a free trade agreement with Australia, for example, one of Canada's major competitors in most of its export markets. And the U.S. is moving toward more deals in the region. The most recent talks were with Vietnam.
"It is important to remember that Canada's advantageous access to the U.S. market will not last forever," warns Chu's report.
China, too, is following the same trend toward bilateral trade deals. And Canada, for the most part, isn't on Beijing's radar screen.
"Beijing is in discussion on possible FTAs with India, Chile, Singapore, South Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council, and there is speculation on potential direct or indirect arrangements with Japan and South Korea," noted Chu's report. "Interestingly, Canada does not appear on this list."
It's not good news. But one way of getting there is for Canada to build up a world-class system of West Coast ports and the railways and highways that connect seamlessly into the North American economy and what shippers call "the global supply chain."
Yet even here, all is not well for Canada and British Columbia.
The so-called Pacific Gateway has begun to show the strain of handling China's booming container traffic. In 2004, a government report noted, "the North American marine and land transport system was near collapse during peak season. Issues of congestion were compounded by a tug boat strike that paralyzed container terminals in the Lower Mainland. The response was immediate -- container carriers began to divert vessels to ports in the U.S. Pacific Northwest."
Last year wasn't much better. The flow of containers from China again soared, up more than 12 per cent over the previous year. "The railroad network capacity was the first part of the chain to break down during this period," Chu's report notes. "These events have eroded the confidence that B.C. businesses have spent years building with overseas customers. They have also come at a time when U.S. rival ports are rapidly increasing capacity. Major importers, such as Wal-Mart, have publicly stated that Vancouver is unreliable, and have begun rerouting their cargo to other points-of-entry."
If anyone thinks that's an exaggeration, they only had to be in the ballroom of a Tokyo hotel a few days ago. B.C.'s premier was standing in front of a giant map of his Gateway dream and was enthusiastically pitching it to a group of Japanese businessman.
Then Shuji Horimito, an importer-exporter who runs Wing International Trading Inc., stood up and asked the question that haunts those who back the Pacific Gateway.
"Premier, can you do anything about this strikeage?" asked Horimito, getting a smile for the new word he used for labour disputes.
Six years ago, 100 per cent of his exports to Asia, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, were from Canada, mostly from B.C., he explained. Now it's about 60 per cent. While B.C. ports might be closer to Asia, he said, the advantage evaporates with any delays in the "global supply chain."
"People want on-time delivery," he said. "When they don't get it every time, they go to other markets and other ports. And then it's very tough to get them back. This is the reality of the global market."
Skyscrapers everywhere
Dusk is settling over Shanghai and B.C.'s premier is on the top floor of a towering skyscraper, on his first night in China after an absence of three years. As the purple, green and red neon lights begin to illuminate Shanghai's skyline, he marvels that the skyscrapers quite literally stretch to the horizon in every direction.
A little more than a decade ago, most of this land below, known as Pudong, was rice paddies. Now, it is one of the world's fastest growing business centres near one of the planet's biggest ports. It's a good perch to get a sense that China is taking the world economy, and its traditional economic players, to an unprecedented future.
"I don't think you can understand this if you're not here," says Campbell, peering out the window. "The growth is just phenomenal."
But Campbell's awe also comes laced with a sense of urgency. While promoting the Pacific Gateway in China as a fait accompli, he knows the dream depends on quick moves by Canada before competing nations fill the void.
There's a long list of things to do on his side of the Pacific. He needs to continue pressuring the federal government to at least match the billions of dollars B.C. is pumping into the Pacific Gateway's development. Railways will need to be upgraded and, in many cases in the Lower Mainland, rerouted so people will accept more and longer trains, some three kilometers in length, as they trundle through bedroom communities.
More major aboriginal treaties will need to be signed, particularly with the Tsawwassen Indian band, which sits on valuable coastal land that will be needed in the expansion of the Roberts Bank superport. That deal is expected to be initialed and put to a vote by B.C., Ottawa and the Tsawwassen soon after the premier flies back to Vancouver.
And finally, there will be environmental concerns, as the government prepares to take out hundreds of hectares of valuable agricultural land. It will be transformed into port facilities, not unlike (though on a smaller scale) what happened to the rice paddies that once existed 46 floors below the premier.
But it's all progress, believes Campbell, and B.C.'s destiny. As he looks out at the window at China's economic miracle, he has some some advice for British Columbians in what he calls the Pacific Century.
"The world is changing," he says. "You can't do much to change that. You have to be part of it."
mcernetig@pngcanwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Is Kitimat’s pipeline project heading for the back burner?
The much anticipated Kitimat Gateway pipeline to be built by Enbridge Inc. is getting pushed back on the corporate agenda, as the company has decided to concentrate on its Alberta Clipper project.
That project is designed to move Alberta oil to the Midwest US, and has become a higher priority due to expanded refining capacity in that part of the States. The push to have that pipeline up and running by late 2009 means that the Kitimat pipeline project will slow down its pace of development, aiming for a completion period of 2012 to 2014.
The Kitimat project featured a dual pipeline system that would run oil from Edmonton to Kitimat in one pipeline and condensate from offshore back to Edmonton in the other. There is still a possibility that the condensate pipeline will be fast tracked ahead of the oil one, with a decision on that possibility expected in the next few months.
The Daily News grabbed material from its wire services, to review the developments on Monday afternoon.
KITIMAT PIPELINE MAY BE DELAYED, ENBRIDGE
Firm expects to focus on inland pipeline to the U. S.
Daily News Wire Services
Monday, November 6, 2006
Pages one and three
PRINCE GEORGE—Enbridge has decided to give priority to increasing oil pipeline capacity inland to the U. S., which will delay its $4 billion Gateway pipeline through northern B. C.
The company announced Friday it will be focusing on its Alberta Clipper project to have it operating by late 2009, a response to recent announcements by its customers- to expand oil refining capacity in the U. S. Midwest.
It means the Gateway project will be pushed back two to four years, with its completion estimated now at 2012 to 2014.
“We saw a need for either an Alberta Clipper or Gateway project in 2009 and 2010 time period.” Enbridge president and CEO Pat Daniel told analysts on a conference call to discuss the company’s $92.3 - million third-quarter profit.
“At this point, it would appear that Alberta Clipper will precede Gateway, unless there’s a shift in current market sentiment,” he said.
Enbridge has spent about $80 million on developing the Gateway project, which runs from the Edmonton area to Kitimat through Northern B. C. passing just north of Prince George.
The twin pipeline – carrying oil and condensate, an oil thinner p is meant to provide increased capacity for the Alberta oilsands, where production is expected to double by the end of the decade.
Daniel said the company will continue developing the Gateway project, but “not at the same accelerated pace as the Alberta Clipper project.”
The Gateway project was eyed to open up new markets in Asia, particularly China, and the U. S, west coast.
Asked by an analyst, whether the company would consider proceeding with the condensate line first, Daniel said the idea is still to build the two lines at the same time as its more cost effective.
But Daniel said the company would probably have a better idea in the next few months, whether it would develop the condensate line more rapidly that the oil line.
Another company, Pembina Corp., also has proposed building a $1 billion condensate line between Summit Lake, just north of Prince George, and Kitimat. That line would hook up with Pembina’s existing pipeline structure at Summit Lake.
The decision to focus on the Alberta Clipper oil pipeline, and delay the Gateway project, comes a week after the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council filed an application in Federal Court challenging Ottawa’s decision to send Enbridge’s proposed $4 billion pipeline to a joint review panel.
The tribal council - the largest First Nations group in B. C.’s northern interior – has asked the court to overturn federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose’s decision because they say they were not consulted.
Ambrose announced Sept. 29 the pipeline would be jointly reviewed by a panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
Asked if the decision to delay the Gateway project had anything to do with the court action, Enbridge spokesman Glenn Herchak said no.
“Our decision to re-prioritize our efforts to the U. S is really based on customer needs and market priorities,” he said.
Herchak stressed that Enbridge’s efforts to secure anchor shipments for the Gateway pipeline will continue.
Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council vice-chief Catherine Lessard said it is a good time for a delay.
“We felt the company was rushing the project, and perhaps people in the market place felt the same way too, that might have had a little bit of an effect on it,” said Lessard.
The tribal council wants more time to study the impacts of the pipeline, as well as consultation.
“We hope the government will used this delay as an opportunity to work together with us to develop a First Nations review process that will parallel the federal review process<’ said Lessard.
(Prince George Citizen)
That project is designed to move Alberta oil to the Midwest US, and has become a higher priority due to expanded refining capacity in that part of the States. The push to have that pipeline up and running by late 2009 means that the Kitimat pipeline project will slow down its pace of development, aiming for a completion period of 2012 to 2014.
The Kitimat project featured a dual pipeline system that would run oil from Edmonton to Kitimat in one pipeline and condensate from offshore back to Edmonton in the other. There is still a possibility that the condensate pipeline will be fast tracked ahead of the oil one, with a decision on that possibility expected in the next few months.
The Daily News grabbed material from its wire services, to review the developments on Monday afternoon.
KITIMAT PIPELINE MAY BE DELAYED, ENBRIDGE
Firm expects to focus on inland pipeline to the U. S.
Daily News Wire Services
Monday, November 6, 2006
Pages one and three
PRINCE GEORGE—Enbridge has decided to give priority to increasing oil pipeline capacity inland to the U. S., which will delay its $4 billion Gateway pipeline through northern B. C.
The company announced Friday it will be focusing on its Alberta Clipper project to have it operating by late 2009, a response to recent announcements by its customers- to expand oil refining capacity in the U. S. Midwest.
It means the Gateway project will be pushed back two to four years, with its completion estimated now at 2012 to 2014.
“We saw a need for either an Alberta Clipper or Gateway project in 2009 and 2010 time period.” Enbridge president and CEO Pat Daniel told analysts on a conference call to discuss the company’s $92.3 - million third-quarter profit.
“At this point, it would appear that Alberta Clipper will precede Gateway, unless there’s a shift in current market sentiment,” he said.
Enbridge has spent about $80 million on developing the Gateway project, which runs from the Edmonton area to Kitimat through Northern B. C. passing just north of Prince George.
The twin pipeline – carrying oil and condensate, an oil thinner p is meant to provide increased capacity for the Alberta oilsands, where production is expected to double by the end of the decade.
Daniel said the company will continue developing the Gateway project, but “not at the same accelerated pace as the Alberta Clipper project.”
The Gateway project was eyed to open up new markets in Asia, particularly China, and the U. S, west coast.
Asked by an analyst, whether the company would consider proceeding with the condensate line first, Daniel said the idea is still to build the two lines at the same time as its more cost effective.
But Daniel said the company would probably have a better idea in the next few months, whether it would develop the condensate line more rapidly that the oil line.
Another company, Pembina Corp., also has proposed building a $1 billion condensate line between Summit Lake, just north of Prince George, and Kitimat. That line would hook up with Pembina’s existing pipeline structure at Summit Lake.
The decision to focus on the Alberta Clipper oil pipeline, and delay the Gateway project, comes a week after the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council filed an application in Federal Court challenging Ottawa’s decision to send Enbridge’s proposed $4 billion pipeline to a joint review panel.
The tribal council - the largest First Nations group in B. C.’s northern interior – has asked the court to overturn federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose’s decision because they say they were not consulted.
Ambrose announced Sept. 29 the pipeline would be jointly reviewed by a panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
Asked if the decision to delay the Gateway project had anything to do with the court action, Enbridge spokesman Glenn Herchak said no.
“Our decision to re-prioritize our efforts to the U. S is really based on customer needs and market priorities,” he said.
Herchak stressed that Enbridge’s efforts to secure anchor shipments for the Gateway pipeline will continue.
Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council vice-chief Catherine Lessard said it is a good time for a delay.
“We felt the company was rushing the project, and perhaps people in the market place felt the same way too, that might have had a little bit of an effect on it,” said Lessard.
The tribal council wants more time to study the impacts of the pipeline, as well as consultation.
“We hope the government will used this delay as an opportunity to work together with us to develop a First Nations review process that will parallel the federal review process<’ said Lessard.
(Prince George Citizen)
Monday, October 30, 2006
Boom time bonanza
A town with so much demand that the jobs go begging. Complete with stories of 12-14 hour days, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, including the tale of a Hotel operator that can’t open up their restaurant, because no one wants or needs to work there.
They’re on the other side of the province and at the other end of the financial spectrum and Dawson Creek is as they say a hot, hot , hot job market. The current boom in the northeast is providing the city of 12,000 with enough money to build a huge new leisure complex.
Dawson Creek of course is part of the same territory that Prince Rupert shares in terms of Employment Insurance reporting, but in reality is a completely different world than that which we feature here. It makes for a fascinating study of two towns of similar sizes in completely different economic situations.
It’s all part of life in the oil patch boomtown and the Vancouver Sun provided an interesting look at how things can quickly change when the boom times come..
Oil and gas boom sets Dawson Creek on fire
The northern town is a hub of B.C. industry
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 30, 2006
First of a series.
DAWSON CREEK -- Two guys came by Curtis York's office the other day, looking for work.
They were heavy-duty vehicle drivers, one from Prince George and the other from Prince Rupert.
They'd gone as far east as Grande Prairie, Alta., looking for a sense of the opportunities available in Canada's booming Western oil-and-gas sector, and were stopping into Dawson Creek on their way home to scope out gas and oilfield service opportunities in one of British Columbia's hottest boom towns.
York needs drivers to deliver drilling fluids to the gas-exploration rigs that are swarming across northeast B.C.
Things are so crazy in Dawson Creek that when a new Best Western hotel opened this summer, the accompanying restaurant stayed closed because the operators couldn't find anyone who needed a job.
It crossed York's mind that the men might be what he was looking for, and the northeast needs in abundance, people with a strong work ethic who will eat up some of the high-paying hours that a vigorous gas industry is throwing his company's way.
No such luck.
He wanted to know when they could start. They began to hem and haw.
"Are you near sour gas?" one asked.
"Well, this is the oil field," York responded.
"Is it harmful?"
"Well of course it is," he replied.
And so on. It soon became clear to York that they were more interested in backtracking than hauling.
"I said: 'I think you better just keep trucking back to Prince Rupert or wherever you've come from. You're just wasting time.'
"They didn't really want it," York reflected in an interview, adding that he has encountered "a lot of people" who make tentative inquiries but lack commitment.
Not York.
He is so confident in the future of B.C.'s gas exploration and development industry -- and the provincial government's commitment to the industry's future -- that he relocated the main office of Gerry's Oilfield Services from Bonanza, Alta., and spent $1 million on a new facility in Dawson Creek.
Companies such as his are springing up like mushrooms in the city's main industrial park in the wake of EnCana's record $400-million purchase of gas- drilling rights on a 362,000-hectare property a couple of hours' drive north of town.
Entrepreneurs such as York, who sniffed out the opportunity and bought into the B.C. government's commitment to supporting an expanded gas industry, are working flat out, making money hand over fist, and creating hundreds of new jobs for British Columbians.
"We made a commitment here," York said. "We've invested a big chunk of dollars in Dawson. We've gotten our return back on it for sure.
"With what was going on in British Columbia we thought it was in our best interests to come in. These are exciting times here and hopefully they will continue."
Perhaps they will.
In a report released last week, BMO Financial Group's economics department said oil-and-gas services will rank as the fastest- growing industry in Canada in 2006-2007.
"Oil-and-gas services are being driven by massive investments in energy resource and infrastructure development," noted BMO Group assistant chief economist Earl Sweet in the report.
"While down from their earlier exaggerated highs, prices for oil and natural gas are projected to remain relatively elevated during the next two years," he added.
"This will ensure that development of Canada's conventional and non-conventional oil and gas fields continues at a brisk pace."
Manny Kutchinski arrived here two years ago, after an oilfield- service career spent mostly in Alberta, to assist in a new pipeline facility business that his son was setting up in Dawson Creek in recognition of the Cutbank Ridge opportunity.
"We got into it right away," Kutchinski said. "In total we've got 100 people working for us here, and we've also got a branch office in Grande Prairie.
"EnCana got things rolling for us."
Paul Gevatkoff, a city councillor in Dawson Creek, said EnCana's decision to run Cutbank as a year-round operation rather than a conventional B.C. winter-only enterprise was a turning point for the economy.
"That's what supports these guys moving in here. Big public companies have moved right into Dawson Creek and set up shop based on being able to work year-round," Gevatkoff said.
Long-time area residents are also participating.
Allan Armstrong, who manages PC Oilfield Supply, took it from a startup in 2003 to "a multimillion dollar company with 20 people."
People are pretty much on the payroll at PC and every other oil- service company in town from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close them at night.
"I think on average, everybody is working 120-130 hours in a two-week period," Armstrong says.
"For the most part, our people have a fairly high level of ambition. If you're going to be putting in the hours and the days that we do, you have to have that drive or you're not going to survive."
His own workday begins before 5 a.m., and goes past 9 p.m.
"I worked 325 days last year," says Armstrong.
"We worked Christmas Day. We have never even advertised, really. We get out there and work just seems to follow."
The economic benefits are spreading through the community.
With a population of just 12,000, the city recently undertook a $35-million recreation and leisure complex.
ssimpson@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
They’re on the other side of the province and at the other end of the financial spectrum and Dawson Creek is as they say a hot, hot , hot job market. The current boom in the northeast is providing the city of 12,000 with enough money to build a huge new leisure complex.
Dawson Creek of course is part of the same territory that Prince Rupert shares in terms of Employment Insurance reporting, but in reality is a completely different world than that which we feature here. It makes for a fascinating study of two towns of similar sizes in completely different economic situations.
It’s all part of life in the oil patch boomtown and the Vancouver Sun provided an interesting look at how things can quickly change when the boom times come..
Oil and gas boom sets Dawson Creek on fire
The northern town is a hub of B.C. industry
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 30, 2006
First of a series.
DAWSON CREEK -- Two guys came by Curtis York's office the other day, looking for work.
They were heavy-duty vehicle drivers, one from Prince George and the other from Prince Rupert.
They'd gone as far east as Grande Prairie, Alta., looking for a sense of the opportunities available in Canada's booming Western oil-and-gas sector, and were stopping into Dawson Creek on their way home to scope out gas and oilfield service opportunities in one of British Columbia's hottest boom towns.
York needs drivers to deliver drilling fluids to the gas-exploration rigs that are swarming across northeast B.C.
Things are so crazy in Dawson Creek that when a new Best Western hotel opened this summer, the accompanying restaurant stayed closed because the operators couldn't find anyone who needed a job.
It crossed York's mind that the men might be what he was looking for, and the northeast needs in abundance, people with a strong work ethic who will eat up some of the high-paying hours that a vigorous gas industry is throwing his company's way.
No such luck.
He wanted to know when they could start. They began to hem and haw.
"Are you near sour gas?" one asked.
"Well, this is the oil field," York responded.
"Is it harmful?"
"Well of course it is," he replied.
And so on. It soon became clear to York that they were more interested in backtracking than hauling.
"I said: 'I think you better just keep trucking back to Prince Rupert or wherever you've come from. You're just wasting time.'
"They didn't really want it," York reflected in an interview, adding that he has encountered "a lot of people" who make tentative inquiries but lack commitment.
Not York.
He is so confident in the future of B.C.'s gas exploration and development industry -- and the provincial government's commitment to the industry's future -- that he relocated the main office of Gerry's Oilfield Services from Bonanza, Alta., and spent $1 million on a new facility in Dawson Creek.
Companies such as his are springing up like mushrooms in the city's main industrial park in the wake of EnCana's record $400-million purchase of gas- drilling rights on a 362,000-hectare property a couple of hours' drive north of town.
Entrepreneurs such as York, who sniffed out the opportunity and bought into the B.C. government's commitment to supporting an expanded gas industry, are working flat out, making money hand over fist, and creating hundreds of new jobs for British Columbians.
"We made a commitment here," York said. "We've invested a big chunk of dollars in Dawson. We've gotten our return back on it for sure.
"With what was going on in British Columbia we thought it was in our best interests to come in. These are exciting times here and hopefully they will continue."
Perhaps they will.
In a report released last week, BMO Financial Group's economics department said oil-and-gas services will rank as the fastest- growing industry in Canada in 2006-2007.
"Oil-and-gas services are being driven by massive investments in energy resource and infrastructure development," noted BMO Group assistant chief economist Earl Sweet in the report.
"While down from their earlier exaggerated highs, prices for oil and natural gas are projected to remain relatively elevated during the next two years," he added.
"This will ensure that development of Canada's conventional and non-conventional oil and gas fields continues at a brisk pace."
Manny Kutchinski arrived here two years ago, after an oilfield- service career spent mostly in Alberta, to assist in a new pipeline facility business that his son was setting up in Dawson Creek in recognition of the Cutbank Ridge opportunity.
"We got into it right away," Kutchinski said. "In total we've got 100 people working for us here, and we've also got a branch office in Grande Prairie.
"EnCana got things rolling for us."
Paul Gevatkoff, a city councillor in Dawson Creek, said EnCana's decision to run Cutbank as a year-round operation rather than a conventional B.C. winter-only enterprise was a turning point for the economy.
"That's what supports these guys moving in here. Big public companies have moved right into Dawson Creek and set up shop based on being able to work year-round," Gevatkoff said.
Long-time area residents are also participating.
Allan Armstrong, who manages PC Oilfield Supply, took it from a startup in 2003 to "a multimillion dollar company with 20 people."
People are pretty much on the payroll at PC and every other oil- service company in town from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close them at night.
"I think on average, everybody is working 120-130 hours in a two-week period," Armstrong says.
"For the most part, our people have a fairly high level of ambition. If you're going to be putting in the hours and the days that we do, you have to have that drive or you're not going to survive."
His own workday begins before 5 a.m., and goes past 9 p.m.
"I worked 325 days last year," says Armstrong.
"We worked Christmas Day. We have never even advertised, really. We get out there and work just seems to follow."
The economic benefits are spreading through the community.
With a population of just 12,000, the city recently undertook a $35-million recreation and leisure complex.
ssimpson@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
And no one yelled out show me the money!
The Province’s Finance Minister Carole Taylor made a tour of the colonies, er, regions this week, her Northwest stop in Rupert taking up a portion of her Wednesday as she spoke with the Chamber of Commerce, she then settled in for a tour of the area and its projects, wrapping up with a Select Standing Committee hearing on Thursday night.
Part of the tour was designed to showcase the Ministry’s plans for consultation on budgetary issues, in the mail and soon to arrive at your door is an information package from the government which includes a questionnaire where BC citizens will be asked about a list of priorities. We will be asked to rank the priorities from 1 to 11 with 1 being our top priority and 11 being the one we could care less about.
So, if we have a particular desire for something from one area, it might come at the expense of something else from elsewhere in the Provincial Budget, or result in an increase in taxes. However, judging by the tone of this government the re-allocation of existing monies is probably the path that will eventually be followed.
The Daily News covered the Ministers trip to the northwest extensively in its Thursday edition, the results of which we podunkicize for you below.
B. C. FINANCE MINISTER GETS VALUE FROM TOUR OF RUPERT
Carole Taylor visits to listen and explain why province won’t be overspending
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Page One and Two
For the first time this year, the province’s Minister of Finance isn’t just asking British Columbians where the province should spend more money, but where it should spend less.
Carole Taylor, Minister of Finance, told the Prince Rupert and District Chamber of Commerce that her ministry has mailed a budget questionnaire to every household in British Columbia asking people what their priorities are for the 2007 budget. The questionnaire includes a list of priorities and asks people to rank them from one to 11, with one being their top priority and 11 their lowest priority.
“In the past, we’ve just asked what people want to spend more money on,” said Taylor. “What will be very interesting to me is what you will put at the bottom of that list.
What I am trying to provoke in people to realize that everything is a trade off,”
The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services is currently touring the province to hear from the public before putting together the 2007 budget. The committee will be holding a public hearing on budge priorities at the Crest from 4 to 7 p. m. today. Taylor explained that the province of B. C. has legislation that requires a balanced budget.
Because of this, the finance minister has very few levers to pull in order to generate more revenue to pay for long-term programs, she said.
Therefore, if people want to see more money spent on long-term programs, the money has to come from another section of the budget or an increase in taxes.
And she’s generally not in favour of increasing taxes.
“I know what happened in the 90’s; I know if you have a cumulative taxation regime, people leave, businesses leave. We have not recovered and probably won’t in my time the number of head offices that left B. C. in the 1980’s,” she said.
And while the economy of B. C. looks set to be strong in coming years. Taylor added that there are some challenges on the horizon.
“You can do some one-time spending for sure when you have a surplus but where you do ongoing spending, you’ve go to be mindful of the cycles of economy,” she said.
The first challenge for the province is the impact of the rising Canadian dollar.
Every time the Canadian dollar goes up a penny, we lose between $25 and $40 million in revenues. It affects tourism and exports primarily,” she said.
The second challenge is that B. C. is tied closely to the U. S. economy, which is showing signs of slowing. Housing starts have gone have gone down in the U. S. now has the lowest housing start levels in since the recession in 1991. And the third challenge for B. C.’s economy will be the price of natural gas.
“A one-dollar change is a #300 million change is our revenue, up or down,” she said.
Given these challenges, she explained, it would be fiscally irresponsible to commit every penny the government expects to be received into provincial coffers.
“What we are trying to do is build a strong economy in Prince Rupert and elsewhere that is there for the long term. We want it there for a couple of decades, not for a couple of years,” she said.
Part of the tour was designed to showcase the Ministry’s plans for consultation on budgetary issues, in the mail and soon to arrive at your door is an information package from the government which includes a questionnaire where BC citizens will be asked about a list of priorities. We will be asked to rank the priorities from 1 to 11 with 1 being our top priority and 11 being the one we could care less about.
So, if we have a particular desire for something from one area, it might come at the expense of something else from elsewhere in the Provincial Budget, or result in an increase in taxes. However, judging by the tone of this government the re-allocation of existing monies is probably the path that will eventually be followed.
The Daily News covered the Ministers trip to the northwest extensively in its Thursday edition, the results of which we podunkicize for you below.
B. C. FINANCE MINISTER GETS VALUE FROM TOUR OF RUPERT
Carole Taylor visits to listen and explain why province won’t be overspending
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Page One and Two
For the first time this year, the province’s Minister of Finance isn’t just asking British Columbians where the province should spend more money, but where it should spend less.
Carole Taylor, Minister of Finance, told the Prince Rupert and District Chamber of Commerce that her ministry has mailed a budget questionnaire to every household in British Columbia asking people what their priorities are for the 2007 budget. The questionnaire includes a list of priorities and asks people to rank them from one to 11, with one being their top priority and 11 their lowest priority.
“In the past, we’ve just asked what people want to spend more money on,” said Taylor. “What will be very interesting to me is what you will put at the bottom of that list.
What I am trying to provoke in people to realize that everything is a trade off,”
The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services is currently touring the province to hear from the public before putting together the 2007 budget. The committee will be holding a public hearing on budge priorities at the Crest from 4 to 7 p. m. today. Taylor explained that the province of B. C. has legislation that requires a balanced budget.
Because of this, the finance minister has very few levers to pull in order to generate more revenue to pay for long-term programs, she said.
Therefore, if people want to see more money spent on long-term programs, the money has to come from another section of the budget or an increase in taxes.
And she’s generally not in favour of increasing taxes.
“I know what happened in the 90’s; I know if you have a cumulative taxation regime, people leave, businesses leave. We have not recovered and probably won’t in my time the number of head offices that left B. C. in the 1980’s,” she said.
And while the economy of B. C. looks set to be strong in coming years. Taylor added that there are some challenges on the horizon.
“You can do some one-time spending for sure when you have a surplus but where you do ongoing spending, you’ve go to be mindful of the cycles of economy,” she said.
The first challenge for the province is the impact of the rising Canadian dollar.
Every time the Canadian dollar goes up a penny, we lose between $25 and $40 million in revenues. It affects tourism and exports primarily,” she said.
The second challenge is that B. C. is tied closely to the U. S. economy, which is showing signs of slowing. Housing starts have gone have gone down in the U. S. now has the lowest housing start levels in since the recession in 1991. And the third challenge for B. C.’s economy will be the price of natural gas.
“A one-dollar change is a #300 million change is our revenue, up or down,” she said.
Given these challenges, she explained, it would be fiscally irresponsible to commit every penny the government expects to be received into provincial coffers.
“What we are trying to do is build a strong economy in Prince Rupert and elsewhere that is there for the long term. We want it there for a couple of decades, not for a couple of years,” she said.
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