Clark says rural Internet project will create jobs
MERRITT (CP) — The mayor of a hard hit oil and gas community in British Columbia’s northeast says the provincial government’s rural economic development strategy fails to recognize the dire straits facing his town and other remote areas.
Bill Streeper, the mayor of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality in Fort Nelson, said Friday stores are closing and people are unable to pay their mortgages are handing him the keys to their homes and leaving town.
“We are having an economic crisis, not issues, it’s a crisis,” he said. “We physically need to see growth happening. Words are no longer available. It’s hard to give the bank words.”
Streeper said at least 70 per cent of the community’s former oil and gas operations are vacant and many former workers have left town to find jobs elsewhere in Canada. He said many fathers have left Fort Nelson to find work, leaving their families in homes that can’t be sold because their values have plummeted.
“If you have a job in Fort Nelson right now, you better be to work early and leave late to keep your job,” he said.
Premier Christy Clark was at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt on Friday to highlight the government’s rural economic development strategy, which includes a $40-million highspeed Internet expansion project to build infrastructure and create jobs in rural B.C.
She said installing Internet cables will create jobs in rural communities and improved high-speed service helps local entrepreneurs explore new business ventures without moving to urban centres.
“What is good for rural B.C. is good for all of B.C.,” Clark said. “This is where the bulk of our wealth comes from, and we need to make sure we are investing in people and getting to yes on projects that will allow communities like this one to thrive.”
The government’s rural strategy announcement on Friday comes just weeks before the official start of May’s election campaign, where rural-urban economic differences are expected to be major campaign issues. Streeper said the Fort Nelson area needs the local natural gas and forest industries to start to moving again. “I have Internet at home,” he said. “It could be faster, but getting an Internet in Fort Nelson is not going to create export for liquefied natural gas.”