VICTORIA B次元官网网址� Premier Christy ClarkB次元官网网址檚 B次元官网网址淏次元官网网址� took some hits as she was finishing her week-long publicity tour to roll it out.
The serious damage wasnB次元官网网址檛 from her political opponents on the left and right. The body blows came from Europe, the United States and China, where the storm clouds of a second recession continued to gather. As world leaders offered up a chorus of warning about debt and falling consumer demand, commodity markets for metals, coal and petroleum tumbled along with stocks.
One of the few firm targets Clark offered was that eight new mines should be up and running in B.C. by 2015, with expansions or upgrades to nine more existing mines. That is the total arrived at after detailed meetings with the industry. But if ChinaB次元官网网址檚 factories slow down because fewer Americans and Europeans buy their goods, those projects can fade as quickly as the price of copper.
Total provincial spending for the B.C. jobs plan comes out around $300 million. The big-ticket items were contributions to port and rail facilities at Prince Rupert and Tsawwassen. Another $24 million goes to staff up natural resource permit offices, which are backlogged after amalgamation of various ministry functions.
NDP leader Adrian Dix leapt on that announcement, saying it proves that the B.C. Liberals starved the regional offices.
HeB次元官网网址檚 right on that. For example, the resource ministryB次元官网网址檚 regional director for Skeena told the Bulkley-Nechako regional district board this spring that he has 30 per cent less staff than five years ago. Some of that is a result of ending duplication of forest, energy and other ministries, but by this spring there were 65 independent power projects waiting for approval in Skeena alone.
Of course the NDP would fix that backlog by killing off the projects, and presumably break up the natural resources ministry again, to ramp up their beloved government jobs.
The NDP also jumped on B.C. Liberal MLA John Les for going to high-unemployment Nanaimo and suggesting people should look north where jobs are going begging.
Construction company had job fairs in Prince George and Chetwynd in early September, looking for hundreds of truck drivers, heavy equipment operators, drillers, blasters, mechanics, surveyors and labourers for the Willow Creek coal mine in Tumbler Ridge. Another job fair was held in Fort St. James around the same time, looking for equipment operators for the Mount Milligan copper-gold mine.
I had a chat a couple of weeks ago with a grader operator in Dawson Creek, working in the gas patch. Most of the pickups he sees on job sites have Alberta licence plates.
So letB次元官网网址檚 say youB次元官网网址檙e an able-bodied unemployed guy sitting in Nanaimo, waiting for a job to come to you. If thatB次元官网网址檚 how you think the economy works, itB次元官网网址檚 no surprise if your preferred political message is DixB次元官网网址檚 1960s socialist blather about the government forcibly sharing the wealth. And itB次元官网网址檚 no surprise that youB次元官网网址檙e unemployed.
B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins trashed the Prince Rupert port announcement as a payoff to local aboriginal people for a potash facility.
B次元官网网址淭he usual Liberal policy of giving natives a veto on new projects has got to end,B次元官网网址� Cummins said, demonstrating once again that he understands nothing about the evolution of this issue in the past 20 years.
In summary, ClarkB次元官网网址檚 jobs plan is to continue Gordon CampbellB次元官网网址檚 Pacific gateway strategy. The opposition parties are reheating decades-old failed options they hope will smell better than a stale three-term government.
And B.C. is, as always, at the mercy of world events.
Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalnews.com
