Mayor, council make China foray
When city representatives land in China today, they will begin a whirlwind week of tours and conversations to find common ground with Prince George’s potential sister city.
Mayor Shari Green, council- lors Dave Wilbur and Lyn Hall and acting city manager Kathleen Soltis are in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong province, to foster the government-to-government relationship Green said is necessary to solidify a twinning agreement.
“They have a whole new set of people in place, so it’s not starting at the beginning again but we need to continue to build the relationship,” Green said.
Though the provincial government is already a presence in the region through Pat Bell’s Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, that relationship is more trade and investment focused, the mayor explained.
“But China very much wants to know the community, the city and the mayor are at the table as well,” she said. “So it’s really important to be there.”
Before the group – also accompanied by Initiatives Prince George head Heather Oland – return to Prince George next Monday, the mayor said she hopes to have a signed memorandum of understanding with Jiangmen officials.
“We do have a letter of intent that was signed in 2010 and now is the opportunity to sign a memorandum of understanding which reinforces many of these shared interests that we have and that we will continue to pursue them jointly,” Green said.
Chief among the shared goals the trip will focus on is the recruitment of international students for Prince George’s postsecondary institutions. While College of New Caledonia has a strong Chinese presence, the University of Northern B.C.’s population is less significant.
The P.G. contingent will visit Wuyi University as well as a local high school, drawing on Coun. Hall’s experience and connections with the school board to make connections for younger students.
“We’ll be able to reinforce the opportunities around their students coming to Canada, coming to Prince George, because it’s a true immersion,” Green said.
That element of immersion is a draw, the mayor explained, because students are less likely to fall in with a familiar crowd while studying in the city.
“If a parent is going to spend the kind of money it takes to send their child to a foreign country, they want them to be immersed in the western culture and learn the language,” Green said. “And they’re often finding, if they just arrive in Vancouver and stay there, there’s such a large Asian population already that they’re just staying in their own cultural circle and really not getting the immersion experience that they could be if they were in a community like ours or in a smaller community.”
On the tourism and culture side, the delegation will focus on Barkerville, which has strong ties to the Guangdong province since the gold-mining days. The group will visit the museum where a Barkerville exhibit will be installed next year and promote Prince George as a hub for Chinese tourists.
“They could head off to Jasper, they could go to Barkerville and see the real tourist experience in the north,” Green said.
Also on the itinerary are stops at pulp and paper companies as well as a furniture manufacturer. While Green said the international student and tourism components are the largest aims for this trip, the economic development side of the relationship won’t be ignored.
“This community is trying to grow its base, grow our community so that we’re not continuously faced with huge tax increases like seven per cent,” said the mayor.
Last week, council received a report from financial planning staff estimating a 7.09 per cent increase to municipal property tax for 2013 “unless the City of Prince George decreases expenses and/or increases non-tax revenues.”
“So we definitely want to bring some business here on the economic development side and that’s why Heather’s going, so if those opportunities arise while we’re there, we’ve got somebody with us who can speak to that,” Green said.
Once the group returns home, the mayor said it will be with the hopeful view of planning to host a Chinese delegation in Prince George and ultimately sign the formal twinning agreement.
“It’s been two years. It’s definitely time to reconnect and reconfirm that those are still shared interests for all of us,” Green said.