Many of the District’s senior staff, as well as some of town council, were at the Union of BC Municipality’s annual convention from September 18-22.
The convention is a chance for municipalities from across the province to gather to talk shop, as well as to listen to speakers and vote on resolutions to bring forward to the provincial and federal governments.
Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka says meetings with people and organizations plays a huge role as well. “I think I had 26 meetings with ministries, BC Hydro, ATV BC, BC Wildfire and groups like that.”
He says there were a number of productive meetings, including a meeting with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Initiative, advocating for Conuma. “We talked about the Environmental Assessment process in regards to permitting for their water licence,” says Krakowka. “I thought the ministry was well prepared. We were seeing if we could get more of a strict timeline for Conuma, because they have to have certain permits in place to even start getting the mine prepped for opening.”
He says the process is in the queue. That’s a good thing. “Instead of sending it straight over, because if they send it straight over and there’s stuff wrong, it just gets sent back. Being in the queue means it gets looked over and commented on. Hopefully we’re hear back soon about that.
Another key meeting was with the Ministry of Forests. “That was in regards to a couple things,” says Krakowka. “One was in regards to stumpage for the community forest. There’s been lots of talk about the increase of stumpage for forestry in general and the community forest specifically. And, while they didn’t give us a timeline, they did mention that there was no increase to stumpage in the foreseeable future of an increase on stumpage for community forests. So that really assists our local community forests.
“The other thing we asked from Ministry of Forest was for them to come in and do a revaluation of all the fire mitigation that was done previously. But knowing that we were evacuated this year, I thought it’s a good time to see if they would be willing to come in, and reevaluate it, see if there are any other prescription cuts we need to do.”
He says he also learned of some grants available to community forest to apply for to do fire mitigation within their own cut blocks. “I thought that was great.”
Another meeting was with the Ministry of Education and Child development. “Again, we went and advocated for the More Spaces Grant. The YMCA has already applied for the grant, but we wanted to tell them that we really do need spaces in Tumbler Ridge, because we are in danger of starting to lose our professional workers, like teachers or healthcare workers, because they can’t find daycare. We need those spaces. We need to make sure that if parents want to work, they have daycare within our community. We’ve applied three times already. My biggest ask was, if there was something wrong with the grant instead of just turning the grant down, reach out. If the application is just missing a couple things, lets get the bullets that we need so that can proceed. So hopefully that happens.”
The District also met with the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport to discuss the museum. “Previous councils and mayor’s have had a lot of dialogue with them already. We’ve hammered this point home. Gone back constantly.”
In fact, says Krakowka, he was in Victoria just this April to meet with the Minister. He says he’d love for them to bring out the big cheque and sign a five year agreement to support the museum, but he doesn’t see that happening.
“They don’t have the budget for it, but they have grants. Zena (Conlin; Executive Director at the Tumbler Ridge Museum) came with us, and she mentioned it was tough to fill out grants when they’re running at capacity just to do programs. The minister mentioned they have staff to help fill out grants, and I asked if they could give us some assistance. I asked ‘Can you send one of those people to us?’”
He says the District would be willing to provide the housing for that person to stay in town while working on the grants. And if that doesn’t happen? “I guess we’re going to just keep asking for it.
“That’s our job as mayor and council: to keep advocating for something that we believe in. Something that benefits the whole province.”
He says he also invited the minister to the grand opening for the mountain bike trails on October 2. Unfortunately, the minister is busy.
One of the best meetings he had with Bowinn Ma, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness.
“On the afternoon we were evacuated, I received a call from Minister Ma,” says Krakowka. “She said ‘here’s my personal cell number. If you need anything—even if it is two in the morning—call me.”
Since then, he’s been able to dialogue with the Minister on the update calls around the wildfire and drought situation.
“I thought, since we’re heading to UBCM, I’d like to meet face-to-face, because I have never met her.
“We didn’t need an official meeting with her ministry, I just wanted to do a meet and greet, so I asked if they could fit us into her schedule.
“I thanked her personally from the district of Tumbler Ridge for the support that she gave to the town and to council. It was great to meet her face to face.
“Afterwards, one of her staff came out and shook hands with us, and said thanks for coming in and just thanking the Minister for what she’s done.
“What I didn’t know is that Minister Ma sits on the trustee board for tourism.
“I was able to talk to her later, moving from session to session. She’s a rural MLA from Creston, and she’s been working on helping the government view decisions through a rural lens. So if the government makes a decision for the Royal BC Museum, they need to look at that through a rural lens, and ask ‘what does that do for the rural areas.’ So I think that is something I really want to keep a finger on because that’s going to be a good thing for those of us north of Hope.
He says for himself personally, this was a very productive and fruitful UBCM. “I haven’t been to all of them since I’ve been on council. At first I thought, ‘eh, is it worth going?’ But Mike Caisley spoke very highly about what can happen at the UBCM. He said ‘you have to be open-minded when you go in there.’ And I said the same thing to council. It’s not like they have all these big fat cheques hiding behind the ministers that they will bring out to give money to everyone who asks. ‘Let’s write your name on it and take a picture.’ That’s not how it works.
“But it’s the networking that is important, the dialogue. They start to learn who you are.”
Like, for instance, meeting with the Premier.
“We hadn’t set up a meeting with the Premier at first, but through Minister Ma’s Chief of Staff, I said it would be great if we could meet with the Premier.
We had a small gift to present him. So her Chief of Staff passed us on to his Chief of Staff and we were able to set up the meeting, which was great.
“But after that, any time we passed premier Eby, he would acknowledge us. “Tumble Ridge, how’s it going? We were at the government reception, and he just walked up to our table and asked ‘How’s Tumbler Ridge tonight?’”
He says he also met with BC Wildfire. “I’ve had a lot of questions for BC Wildfire Service and just in regards to aerial firefighting equipment and all that.
“I was able to meet with BC Wildfire Services, two staff members. And we talked about lines of communication, because I would be doing an interview, and I wouldn’t know the answer, or I’d say one thing and BC Wildfire Services was giving a different message. There wasn’t a good enough dialogue between BC Wildfire Service updates to our staff to bring forward. So they have promised that they will get a hold of Prince George Fire Center and hopefully council have a meeting with BC Wildfire Services before October 15.”
He hopes to invite them to the next Let’s Talk event, which he is hoping will be scheduled in the next couple months.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
