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Mackenzie, Fort St. James to get $2 million each for job creation opportunities, premier announces |
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Written by MARK NIELSEN
Citizen staff
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Friday, 09 May 2008 |
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CIVIC CENTREPREMIER GORDON CAMPBELLECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Each community will receive "direct assistance" of $2 million each and Ministry of Economic Development officials will be visiting the towns next week Campbell said during a speech to local politicians attending the North Central Municipal Association conference at the Civic Centre.
"We'll be talking with their councils, we'll be talking with the people that live there," he said. "We'll say, 'what do we need to do to stabilize your community so people who live in Mackenzie know Mackenzie is important to us, it's important today, it's important tomorrow, it's important to our future and you've got a future in Mackenzie.'"
He added that Mackenzie and Fort St. James are two of the most forest-dependent and highest-impacted communities in the province and that Fort St. James will be afforded the same opportunities as Mackenzie.
The $4 million will come out of $26.25 million designated for a job opportunities program that will be up and running by June when a secretariat has been appointed to pay for a range of forest-related employment-creating initiatives -- from treeplanting to fish passage restoration to building and maintaining recreation sites and trails.
Those who land jobs will be paid rates appropriate to the skills and qualifications required by the work. Communities, organizations and forest licensees can get information on submitting expressions of interest from the community development trust website starting in June.
Meanwhile, starting May 15, workers can apply for up to $5,000 for one year's tuition at any public or private post-secondary institution in the province through the community development trust website at www.labour.gov.bc.ca/cdt as $17.25 million has been set aside for the purpose.
Most of the $129 million will got to transitional assistance for older workers. Starting mid-July the secretariat will start receiving applications for a share of $85.5 million set aside to help older workers to retire early without penalty.
"We want to be sure they can make that choice and not fell they've got to be disrupted, not feel they have to leave the community," Campbell said. "We want to make sure they can stay in those communities and build the kind of future they want."
The $129 million is the province's share of the $1-billion community development trust announced last January by the federal government. Over 5,000 forest workers across the province will benefit from the programs over three years, according to a government press release.
Opposition forest critic Bob Simpson said an estimated 13,000 workers have been put out of work either temporarily or indefinitely in the last 18 months and continued to maintain the province should match the funding put up by the province.
He also contended the government could have acted much sooner to soften the impact.
Simpson said it became apparent as far back as 2005 that the U.S. housing market is heading for trouble.
"That's how I got the nickname 'chicken little,'" he said. "And unfortunately, the sky is falling."
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 May 2008 )
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