News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

(Submitted by Kerry Cook's office - unedited.)

Council received a presentation from Brian Groves, CEO of Spanish Mountain Gold, and the news is very exciting. The project continues to move forward, with the economics shaping up right for the company. Capital costs of the Spanish Mountain Gold mine near Likely would be at least $500 million; up to 600 construction jobs would be created, and the mine would employ up to 300 full-time workers. The company has already signed protocol agreements with the Williams Lake Indian Band and the Xat’sull First Nation. This project will be a very welcome addition to our regional economy.

(Photo:  Craig Smith)

When I was home recently I found there was a lot of confusion about the timber supply and job loss numbers I had commented on in the press. Some people were more angry than confused, some were angry at me.

Let me try to clear up some of the confusion and address people's anger.

First, the numbers are not mine. The timber supply documents released to the public come from internal government assessments of the state of our pine beetle ravaged forests. The documents clearly indicate that all the companies operating in our area played a major role in this analysis and that it was the companies that were raising the alarm about log shortages in the near future. These documents are available on both my website and the government's.

Bob Simpson's Musings

Much attention is being paid to the federal budget bill and the limited time MPs have to debate that massive piece of legislation with its embedded changes to Canada's environmental laws, but the same issues of time-limited debate and the undermining of the legislative process are playing out in BC.

With eight days left to go in this spring session, we have over 20 pieces of legislation still requiring substantive debate. The flood of new bills over the past few days has been overwhelming, and it includes legislation for coordinating police forces, managing animal health, re-establishing provincial park boundaries, and changing the school calendar. Legislation to get rid of the HST and to restore the PST also needs to be waded through before we wind up at the end of May.

Bob Simpson's Musings

There’s an adage in business that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Put another way, if you don’t have good data about something, then you won’t be able to successfully manage that particular aspect of your business.

The single largest public asset in British Columbia is our forests; the estimated economic value of those forests is approximately one quarter of a trillion dollars. Despite the importance of our forests, it’s become increasingly clear that the provincial government’s data about our public forests is no longer accurate or trusted.