Editor's Note -- Weekly Quesnel City Council column written by Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson. He can be reached via email here
This week we had the opportunity to sit down with the Premier of British Columbia for an extended conversation about our region’s challenges and strategic initiatives. This meeting represented an unprecedented opportunity for the North Cariboo’s local governments and first nations leaders to discuss face to face with the Premier how we can better align our priorities, initiatives and programs in order to achieve maximum benefit for our constituents and ensure our region remains resilient during this challenging transition period.
The 15-minute speed dating with Provincial Ministers we get each year at the Union of BC Municipalities Conference doesn’t really allow City Council the kind of wide-ranging conversation we had with the Premier this week, nor enable us to have our First Nations partners in the room with us.
The first meeting we had with the Premier this week was held in our new Forestry Innovation Centre and involved the Chiefs from Lhtako and Nazko Nations, the Cariboo Regional District Chair, myself and members of Council, along with staff from the City, Southern Dakelh Nation Alliance, Ministry of Forests, Ministry of Indigenous Relations, and the Northern Development Trust. The focus of the first part of this meeting was our collective economic transition strategy and ways the Province can flow more financial resources to us in a timelier manner by tweaking existing programs rather than inventing new ones.
As a group we were able to thank the Premier in person for the extensive investments his government is making in our region: the major addition to the hospital, the new Junior Secondary School, new social housing projects, multiple road projects (we also discussed the importance of the Interconnector Project). It cannot be overstated how important these public sector investments are for our local economy and workforce at this time of job losses in the forest sector.
We then discussed the importance of major potential projects like the Lhtako Dene Cultural Centre, the proposed addition to and renovation of the Arts and Recreation Centre, and our Waterfront Development Plan to the realization of our vision for our community. We also outlined for the Premier the role our Forestry Think Tank process and our Food Innovation Hub play in repositioning our traditional resource sectors for success in the future.
After outlining our general economic transition strategy, we delved more deeply into the Forestry Think Tank process, the Provincial Government’s landscape planning pilot, our Community Wildfire Protection Plan activities, and our new potential Community Forest and First Nations Woodland Licenses. With all the local partners in the room with the Premier we were able to demonstrate our alignment around these key initiatives and outline for him how our priorities also align with his government’s desire to see the forest sector extract more value from our forest resources.
After the meeting at the Forestry Innovation Centre, the Premier met with a great group of young agriculturalists and food processors over lunch at Long Table. The focus of this meeting was the Regional Food Innovation Hub, a collaboration between the City of Quesnel, the Ministry of Agriculture, and our local agriculture community that hopes to see Quesnel become an innovation and incubation centre for growing, processing, and marketing more local food options.
After our meetings, the Premier then went on to tour West Fraser’s Plywood Plant and Sawmill.
All in all, the day the Premier spent here in Quesnel will go a long way toward helping us align our local priorities with his government’s, to everyone’s benefit.
(Please note, a full day meeting with the Premier and a group of Northern Mayors was also held in Prince George this week to discuss public safety issues, the Opioid Crisis, homelessness, and regional economic development initiatives.)
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