Prince George, BC

Companies both new to the region and already established announced over the past several weeks they are investing in the Prince George area, a sign of continued confidence in the regional economy.

First on the list is Alaska Air Group, with companies serving more than 70 destinations in the Western U.S., Canada and Mexico. Starting May 1st, Horizon Air will launch service to Seattle from Prince George providing new U.S. market connectivity at highly competitive fares. Within British Columbia, this will put Prince George in the same small circle as Kelowna, Vancouver and Victoria in providing direct daily scheduled service to an international destination.

Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc., one of the world's largest publicly traded, pure molybdenum producers, announced its intentions to grow its investment in the region over the past month. The Company's Board of Directors announced in March that it has approved plans to expand capacity at the Endako Mine from 28,000 to 50,000 tonnes of ore per day beginning in 2010. The expansion project involves a modernization of the mill and expects its capital expenditures related to the expansion project during the period 2008 to 2010 alone will be C$280 million. Supply and service companies in the Prince George area have an opportunity to grow involvement with the expansion and ongoing servicing at the mine 190 km west of Prince George.

Telus announced this past week that it is doubling the size of its call centre to 150 employees in Prince George. Home to post-secondary education programs, the company believes Prince George is a great place to attract the skills they need for their corporate expansion.

Prince George's locational advantages for business expansion were re-affirmed this month. KPMG's 2008 Competitive Alternatives Guide is used widely by site locators and compares key business competitiveness factors such as land and facility, labour, transportation, utilities and taxes in jurisdictions throughout North America. The study concludes that Prince George has a cost-advantage to many cities including Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and is similar to Calgary, Kelowna and Phoenix. In this environment, increasing air, road and rail transportation linkages for people and products will direct the flow of capital in a global market to Northern B.C. Facilitating this remains the priority of Initiatives Prince George.

Economic Activity Statistics
Employment The unemployment rate in Prince George rose for the third straight month in March, to 6.7% from 5.6% in February. The rise can be partly explained by a seasonal upward fluctuation that is normal for this time of year, and also by the downturn that continues to be experienced in the forest industry. Curtailments at many of the local mills have contributed to a rise in unemployment that is higher than the trend from the previous year; however, the 12-month average unemployment rate remains lower for the past year than from the year before (5.1% average for April 2007-March 2008 compared to 5.8% for April 2006-March 2007). The employment rate declined slightly from February (from 70.5% to 68.5%), with 1,300 fewer persons employed in March. The decline in employed persons can be mostly attributed to full-time employment (1,100 fewer full-time employed in March than in February 2008).

Real Estate
290 properties (of all types), valued at $64.2 million, changed hands in Prince George in the first 3 months of 2008, compared with 415 properties worth $83.6 million for the same period in 2007. The average resale price for a single family residential home was $246,839 between January and March 2008, up 2.7% from the previous quarter (October-December 2007) and up 6.0% over the first quarter (January-March) of 2007. Despite steadily rising prices, the number of houses sold in the first quarter of 2008 was lower than for the first quarter of 2007 (193 compared to 243). However, the BC Northern Real Estate Board has reported that activity in the real estate market is picking up as spring is arriving and that with the current interest rates remaining low, a strong spring market is anticipated. New home prices also continue to be strong relative to 2007, and have recovered from the slight dip seen at the beginning of this year; the average cost of a new home was $397,433 in February 2008, up 13% from January 2008 and 31% higher than February 2007.

Housing starts
There were 5 housing starts and 11 completions in February, and 6 starts in March. Housing starts are down from the same months in 2007 (5 fewer in February 2008, down from 10 in February 2007, and 17 fewer in March 2008, down from 23 in the same month in 2007), but although the year-to-date totals are down slightly, it is too soon to speculate about the trend to be expected in upcoming months. The number of housing units under construction in the city was much higher in February 2008 than in the same month last year. There were 316 housing units under construction (247 of those units were single family residential units), compared to 223 units (194 of which were single family units) in February 2007.

Building permits
Building permits issued for the month of March totaled $5,862,888. Residential permits accounted for the majority of permits issued (30 of 43), and for 40.9% of the total value. Institutional permit values were a close second, at 38.9% of the total value of permits issued. Eleven (11) commercial permits were issued in March, accounting for 20.2% of the total monthly value. Year-to-date permit totals are up 26.6% over last year.

Business licenses
The City of Prince George approved 99 business licenses in February, and 80 in March.

From Initiatives Prince George 250-564-0282 www.initiativespg.com

I was surprised to read in the local paper that prices have gone up this quarter compared to the same period in 2007 by 6% according to the BC Norther Real Estate Board.

The number of sales of singe family homes had declined during the first three months of 2007. This is not surprising as the market is definately not as active this spring (yet).

Between Jan. 1 and March 31, 193 single-detached houses were sold, down from the 243 in 2007. The average price of a home sold during the first quarter of this year was $246,839, up from $232,951 last year.

You can read more about this at the Prince George Citizen.

On March 29, my family and I partook of the Earth Hour observance of turning off our lights for one hour from 8-9pm. In fact we left the lights off all evening.

This act was not to save money or to make a difference in worldwide power consumption as many people believe. It was done to create awareness that we are consuming the earth's resources and are contributing to global climate change. It was an event to symbolize that people worldwide can work together in an effort to fight climate change.

The statistics are out in regard to energy savings, and I am disappointed to say that Prince George the worst reduction of 'savings' in the province of British Columbia. We managed a whopping 0.2% of electricity, while the provincial average was 2%.

My family and I will continue to save energy where we can. Energy saving tips to make Earth Hour every day can be found here. Please do your part!

Easter is almost here and I have been dyeing eggs. This year I'm using natural dyes and have found them just as easy, (not quite) as colourful, and healthier than artificial dyes.

Here is what I did:
I gathered up my dye ingredients. I used blueberry juice, turmeric and spinach for this batch.

Eggs were placed in a pan (single layer) with enough water to cover and added one tablespoon of vinegar to the water.

I then added my dyes. I didn't use any exact measures - just enough for what I figured would be effective. I think I put in 2 tsp of turmeric.

Bring the pans to a roiling boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Rinse the eggs and then use some vegetable oil to polish.

Final product: - as you can see the turmeric and blueberry juice worked very well. The spinach did turn the eggs a very pale green, but I think I didn't use enough in the pot.






Other frozen or fresh fruits and vegetables you could use are:

Beets, Beet juice, Skins from red or regular onions, Pomegranate juice, Grape juice, Curry powder, Mustard powder, Red cabbage, Cranberries, Grass, Instant coffee, Lemon peels, Orange peels, Blackberries.

His name is Larry and he followed me home - hitchhiked actually.

I did some shopping and decided to purchase some indoor plants for the house at Home Depot. Our old place was so dark, I wasn't able to keep any plants alive. This home was build with very large windows for passive solar energy, plus is south facing - very bright and sunny indeed.

I found a large Mass Cane at the store that I picked up. My daughter squealed in delight when she saw it. There was Larry attached to the side of the plant!

Considering I have about a meter of snow (3 ft) in my yard, and snails are not indigenous to our area - I am not able to send him out.

I guess I got two for one - a new plant and a new pet!