October 15, 2022

HELP WANTED

It seems like every business window in Prince George has the same sign posted in it: Help Wanted.  This issue is also true for our trades, health care, teachers, and support workers.  There simply are not enough people to fill all the available jobs in our community.  What a great problem to have!

Sensible Solutions:

• The City of Prince George has had a program for years called “Move up PG” to attract people from the lower mainland to move up to Prince George. It’s a great program, but we need to be broaden it’s outreach to include all of Canada.

• Tourism Prince George does an amazing job of promoting our city and our region as a place to visit. I believe that the City of Prince George should be partnering with them to promote our city has a great place to move to!

• Our city is an amazingly welcoming community! Thanks to the great work of PG4Ukraine we have already seen 80 families from the Ukraine relocate to Prince George. Unfortunately, millions of Ukrainians have fled their country and are looking for a safe and welcoming community to relocate to. The City of Prince George could be providing more support to PG4Ukraine to promote our city and assist those who are interested in restarting their lives to come here.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

The businesses in our community have faced some unprecedented challenges through the last few years of COVID.  One of the biggest of them has been that caused by repeat offenders.  These are people who commit a disproportionate number of break ins, theft, and/or assaults on their employees or the owners themselves.  These same repeat offenders are the ones that are breaking into our cars and steal from our homes and yards.  At Great White recently, we apprehended a lady and when the police officer arrived, we found out that it was the third time that day that she had been caught shoplifting! 

Sensible Solutions:

• The Provincial government needs to change the laws around prolific offenders. This only happens through advocacy by your Mayor and Council where we they are visible and vocal. We have to hold the Province’s proverbial “feet to the fire” on this until they have fixed this!

• Currently RCMP process prolific offenders in the back of their police car and then release them within minutes of them being apprehended. We need to go back processing them through the RCMP detachment. At the very least, it will mean that they are off the street for a while as our City staff goes through the steps needed to process them. At this point all that is left for us is to inconvenience them.