We want to get back to work, FSJ Mayor tells BCNRF
Government needs to streamline processes
“If we had one thing we to say to higher levels of government, what would it be? I want to get back to work. That’s what I would like to say to them.”
Armed with a representation of the last board to come out of Canfor’s Fort St. John mill, with photos of the employees’ signatures, Fort St. John Mayor Lilia Hansen addressed attendees at the BC Natural Resources Forum.
“As mayor, I represent council, I speak for council, I speak for the municipality, I speak for my residents, and I speak from the heart.
“The last board went through the mill December 19 at 11:15 p.m.,” Hansen said. “Canfor had offered to send me with their 10-foot length of board, the last board that went through, and it has the signatures of approximately 221 employees that signed the board.”
They don’t want to be forgotten, Hansen said, and they’ve asked her to bring this message to the conference in Prince George.
“It’s important that as elected officials that we realize there’s often unintended consequences to our decisions, that are made with the best intentions.”
Kim Logan, VP of Partnerships and Strategy at iTotem Analytics who moderated the mayor’s panel, agreed with Hansen, saying:
“We may be talking about revenues or tax revenues, but at the end of the day, this is really a discussion about people and communities.”
In a study done by iTotem Analytics for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, looking at procurement in BC between 2018-2021, showed that the top three municipalities were all in the Peace region – Fort St. John, Dawson Creek and Pouce Coupe.
Logan said that the report showed that there are $2.5 billion in expenditures and 870 suppliers in Fort St. John, and asked Hansen how her community views the natural resource sector.
“We are definitely truly blessed,” Hansen replied. “It is definitely a key driver in our area for our economic sector – for jobs, for businesses – they make our quality of life possible.”
In addition to Mayor Hansen, the panel participants were Prince George mayor Simon Yu, Prince Rupert mayor Herb Pond, and Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West. Each spoke about the importance of the natural resource industry to their communities.
The lone mayor from the southern regions of the province, Mayor West said that like the northern communities represented at BCNRF, Port Coquitlam is a resource community, and he says that although there’s no mine or mill in Port Coquitlam, “the health of my community is linked to what happens in the rest of the province.”
“When I have to take my son to the emergency room, it’s the resource industry and the activity that occurs throughout British Columbia that helps make that possible,” West said. “We have a big job to do educating people in every corner of the province that we’re not a series of micro-states. We’re one province. We need to act like it.”
Government, he said, has a responsibility to take the lead and educate British Columbians about the resource industry. To do that, government has to believe in the work people in every part of the resource sector do.
“It’s the difference between coming up here and being able to tell you that what you do is important and actually demonstrating that.”
“I think that’s what government has to do. Not only in it’s messaging to the rest of the province, but also internally in terms of their own regulatory approach, and maybe even more important than the regulations, the culture that they create amongst the bureaucracy and the people who’s job it is to process applications and permits.”
Hansen pointed out that it previously took between 60 and 90 days for industry to get permits, but now it takes two to three years.
“We need to streamline the regulatory process. There also has to be certainty when it comes to how quickly we can get permits.”
Prince Rupert mayor Herb Pond said that smart regulation, meaningful partnerships especially with First Nations and funding for things like healthcare are critical to the success of the resource industry and important in creating thriving communities that are strong vibrant places to live.
Pond noted that it’s becoming more challenging to attract people away from larger centres to more rural communities.
“In this room, there’s all kinds of stories about difficulties around recruitment and retention,” he said. “When your ER is closed, it’s pretty hard to sell yourself as a thriving community.”
He echoed Hansen’s comments about the need for certainty.
“Communities, First Nations and industry need certainty. Certainty around regulation, certainty around funding, certainty around the rules moving forward.”
Prince George is at the centre of 60 percent of the province’s exports and all the natural resources that feed into our economy, yet somehow over the years as the resources were being extracted, our cities weren’t being developed, didn’t get the fair share that they should have, Mayor Simon Yu said.
“Look, 1400 of you showed up here, and all we have is a small little civic plaza. This is not acceptable,” Yu said.
The key is to understand that all the small communities have ambitions, Yu said. That ambition is to grow.
“When we grow, this will be our success.”
Partnerships with and investment by First Nations has been very beneficial to Prince Rupert, Pond said.
“Almost every single major investment in Prince Rupert, not the industrial terminals and those sorts of things, but housing and businesses is all First Nations,” he said.
We can talk about reconciliation, have nice words about it, but when people are participating in the economy, the result is that First Nations are turning back to the community and looking for ways to help strengthen it, Pond said.
“They’re looking at literally millions of dollars in investment in healthcare in the community. Not for First Nations but for the whole community.
“When we hit a place where everybody is benefitting from the rise of the economy, then we have hit a place where at least on an economic level, we’ve gotten to a reconciliation place.”
Hansen believes that we will go farther working together, that you’re not going to get far if you’re working against each other.
“In our area, in the Peace region, I am really proud to see what our First Nations neighbours have done. They have led projects; they are making things happen.
“Doig River First Nations have worked with the City of Fort St. John; they now have an urban reserve within municipal boundaries. They are building a project called Naache Commons,” said Hansen.
The Metis Nation has also undertaken a variety of projects in the city, Hansen said, including buying an apartment building and building a daycare this spring.
“They are making steps forward for the progress and the certainty of their nation, their members, their family. I think that’s what we’re all working for. We say it’s for our community, and our province, but it’s for our family.”
Fort St. John has been able to put service level agreements and MOUs in place, but Hansen says to do that, you must ask your partners what’s important to them.
“The benefits of working together is not just for one group, it’s for the province.”
West agreed that partnerships and working together are important.
BC is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, opportunities that are the envy of other jurisdictions, and the opportunity to ensure prosperity for everyone in the province is unparalleled, he said. Too often, the desire for consensus is preventing industry from pursuing those opportunities.
“I agree, you’ve got to try to get consensus. But sometimes you can’t, and you have to move on. You have to move on and get things done,” West said.
West said that in the municipal world, when they get a re-zoning application, people have an opportunity to say their piece on the proposal. Then council makes a decision.
“We don’t go back to the people who are nay-sayers about almost anything and say well here’s a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth kick at the can, to try and slow down or actually stop a project.”
West says we must start thinking about ways to get projects done, through a process that allows people to have their say, makes an honest attempt to find consensus, but actually gets things done.
“There are some folks who have a do-nothing sort of mentality. We can’t allow them to be driving the decision-making in British Columbia when it comes to natural resources.”
The mayors all agreed that to attract more investment and help municipalities grow their local economies, the provincial government needs to streamline the regulatory processes.
“[Industry] want to know what the rules to the game are,” Hansen said.
The processes, says Pond, were created by people who don’t want projects to proceed.
“I think the average British Columbian would be shocked to see how much paper is generated to do a pipeline project from Fort St. John out to the coast,” Pond said. “If you were to build a house that way, it would take you 30 years to build a house.”
“We need to understand that the people who do this work are good at what they do. And they’re trained in what they do.”
British Columbia is one of the highest regulated places on earth, with the highest environmental standards, labour standards, and human rights, said West.
“We’re already doing very well, and we need to put a stop to the overkill on the regulatory side.”
Mayor Yu went one step further, urging policy makers to talk to the industry, to First Nations and the mayors because these people have a lot of information that could help develop better policies.
“Policy needs to be vetted by the industry, by the First Nations, and by people who actually know what they’re doing, before it becomes policy,” said Yu.