So: Whose fault is it that mills are closing and jobs are being lost? Here you have the former head of Canfor and former forests minister Pat Bell indicating government policy is to blame while here you can find the argument that it was actually policy decisions made back when both those men were in decision-making positions. Premier David Eby has been focused on the role of the pine beetle and forest fires in his remarks but he isn’t above throwing a jab or two into the policy decisions made by the B.C. Liberals, including Bell, while the Liberals are certainly happy to focus on the decisions of more recent years when the NDP was in power, such as the decision to defer logging in favour of old-growth policies — an issue raised by the union, along with raw log exports. Meanwhile, conservation groups argue the culprit is years of corporate mismanagement treating focused on short-term profits, rather than long-term sustainability. Plus, there’s a recession.

Regardless, the Premier is in town today and he’ll be making some sort of announcement that will likely contain much of the same language we’ve heard coming from various premiers for decades: sustainability, value-added, innovation. And industry analysts say more cuts are coming. On that, at least, everyone seems to agree.

Putting things off at council

Not a whole lot to report out of council last night. After most of the current councillors kicked the question of how much they should get paid during the last term to this term, the group decided instead to kick that ahead to 2026 and try to come up with a better idea than “compare our pay to a bunch of other cities bigger than us and increase it based on that” which, as coun. Cori Ramsay pointed out, tends to have a “domino effect” where cities just keep increasing their pay because other cities are, prompting other cities to do so and so on and so on. They also passed a new policy on getting letters of support for grant applications prompted by the whole Kyle Sampson/music festival issue, but not before most of the group made it clear they didn’t blame Sampson for the issue but rather the lack of policy.

The only note I have to make is that the dynamic of having a mayor with no previous experience in local government alongside a bunch of multi-term veterans continues to play out, with Simon Yu eager to defer decisions until more information can be gathered only to have someone more senior explain that there are immediate steps that can be taken with the information at hand — it happened at least twice last night, and has happened before. There’s nothing wrong with this and, in fact, it speaks to the spirit of collaboration I predicted would play out based on the folks elected. It’s just a change of pace from the previous term where Lyn Hall, a veteran of the mayor’s chair, council table and, before that, school board, moved things along at a brisk pace and was clearly very versed in the processes, whereas here you can hear Yu feeling things out, still. So far, I’d say, he hasn’t really asserted himself or any sort of agenda onto to the table (certainly not his promised emergency shelters) and I’m not sure I’m seeing indication that’s going to happen anytime soon. Still, given the possible alternatives with a rookie mayor and experienced council playing out in Kamloops, that may be something to be thankful for.

Airport numbers are rising but still far below historic levels

The Prince George Airport released its 2022 passenger numbers, with an 81 per cent increase over 2021. That rapid rise, of course, is due to some level of normalcy returning after the pandemic paralyzed air travel and things continue to lag far below where they were before. I graphed out the numbers as far back as I could quickly find them, which is 2008, and you can see that we’re not even back to those levels yet:

What was interesting (to me) about going through these is how after a record was set in 2008, every year from 2012 to 2018 was yet another record. I’ll be curious to see if that trend comes back in 2023. Here’s the data for you:

2008 417,484

2009 376,030

2010 390,340

2011 402,438

2012 418, 589

2013 426,709

2014 445,929

2015 470,849

2016 462,007

2017 499,125

2018 506,486

2019 496,714

2020 176,994

2021 201,506

2022 365,301

Other news:

• A petition filed by a Prince George family in British Columbia Supreme Court is asking a judge to declare that B.C. Hockey does not have the authority to attach automatic suspensions to penalties after a 16-year-old was suspended for five games for giving the middle finger “after a player on the opposing team had called him a "fat f--k'n r-----d," according to court documents.”

• Several Prince George restaurants have joined a Tourism PG campaign called “bevies and bites” where you can get special drink and food combos until Feb. 16.

• Hydrogen power is being touted as the next big thing and the city of Prince George is well-positiond to capitalize.

• A new podcast focused on the drug poisoning crisis in B.C. and Alberta features stories Prince George.

• And there’s another toxic drug alert in the city.

• Here is a good post from the city about dog poop.

• Some vacation pics from councillor Brian Skakun:

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