I bought a paper Friday, simply because of the headline "Possible Plant Development..."...let me explain:
My family survived the forest industry slowdown in 2007,then the stock market crash in 2008 by having our family breadwinner go to work in the oil patch. I stayed home here in PG because we had put our roots down here, and we wanted to stay. For two-and-a-half years my husband and I took turns driving back and forth to Grande Prairie, seeing each other only once a month. Our story is far from unique, sadly, which brings me to the point:
What about the future? The mining industry has filled in much of the hole left by the forest industry, and forestry has picked up, which means there are many more jobs here than there were three years ago. However, we have children growing up. Will they have opportunity here, or will they need to go elsewhere to find it?
This development plan may or may not actually happen, but if we allow preservation-ism to discourage new industry here, and prohibit new industrial projects simply because they make a footprint, and no new industry is begun here, what then? Those industries will go somewhere, the question is will we get a benefit other than the opportunity to buy a new gadget or food grown with fertilizer produced elsewhere?
Surely there is enough wilderness here that we can withstand some environmental impact in order to have a thriving economy here. We can't ALWAYS say NO!
Trudy Klassen
Prince George
