Editor:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined with global Asian Pacific-centered countries in Vladivostok to discuss the developing economic opportunities within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) community of countries.
Attending this Russian-held conference, a world’s who’s who, included such names as Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, and our Prime Minster Stephen Harper. Of course, there are many more highly respected leaders of countries within the frame work of APEC.
Canada’s West Coast is why Canada happens to belong to the APEC community. So what is APEC’s value here in the Cariboo/Chilcotin Central Coast? Billions of dollars are being spent developing infrastructure and improving access so that Canada can more efficiently handle developing trade through two of Canada’s existing West Coast port facilities, while the potential of the Central Coast lies dormant to modern growth by an outdated transportation corridor. We in the Cariboo-Chilcotin-Central-Coast should be yelling our fool heads off; we have the only real third outlet to the Pacific Rim countries. Where are our leaders? Why are we not demanding some economic development in Cariboo/Chilcotin Central Coast as part of this massive Canadian Pacific Rim economic investment?
Certainly development in the pristine environment of the Cariboo-Chilcotin-Central-Coast will be affected. That’s why we who live in this environment need to be proactive, prior to development occurring, not now, but right now. We need to be developing our own developmental strategies, laying a hard and fast foundation of how we want our environment developed and protected at such a time development for the good of Canada may occur.
In the mean time the Central Coast and the Cariboo-Chilcotin corridor, our access point to this developing Pacific Rim economy, is getting short shafted with absolutely no economic benefit, while billions of Canadian tax dollars are going to the other two Pacific Rim access points.
Let’s get our heads out of the sand. The federal and provincial governments need to be hounded that a proper modern highway to the Central Coast should be constructed as a necessary adjutant to the development and future of the Cariboo/Chilcotin Central Coast and our future place in the world economy.
Doug Wilson
Williams Lake