Kelly LaRochelle uprooted his family from Lillooet and moved to Kamloops in the spring of 2011 after the lumber mill he worked at shut its doors amid a downturn in the provincial forestry sector. He was steered toward the mining industry, and discovered a program that would train him to become an underground miner and work for New Gold Inc.’s New Afton Mine, thanks to the British Columbia Aboriginal Mine Training Association.

The forest industry was the backbone of the economy of Terrace decades ago when it had several mills operating. In 2001, the United States had a dispute around Canadian subsidies and USA imposed a countervailing duty tariff on all lumber from Canada, which is now known as the softwood lumber dispute, one of the most significant and enduring trade disputes in modern history. In other words, the United States felt that their domestic producers of softwood lumber couldn’t be competitive because of Canadian Government subsidies on softwood lumber so to even the playing field, taxed all Canadian lumber as it entered the country. This had a huge impact on the City of Terrace, now all of the major mills are currently shut down and dismantled. The closure of mills had the negative repercussions of residents being laid off and industrial tax revenue to Terrace declining.

2012 will be an exciting year as construction begins on many major projects worth billions of dollars. We have outlined a few large projects that plan to begin construction in 2012. You can keep yourself up to date on these projects by visiting www.investnorthwestbc.ca or checking out teda.ca/projects.

Mining is considered as the future economic driver of Northwest British Columbia, which is a shift from the logging industry that this region was built on. As the Northwest Transmission Line gears up for construction, and mines work through their permitting and assessment process, many wonder what impacts the industry will have on Northwest BC and Terrace.

On Dec 1, 2011, it was announced by Jean Simone, the President of the Primary Metal division of Rio Tinto Alcan that the modernization has been approved by the Board of Directors. The announcement has been long awaited and much anticipated as Rio Tinto Alcan has already spent $700 million on the project to this point.

Tomorrow on December 1st, Premier Christy Clark and Rio Tinto Alcan CEO, Jacynthe Cote, will be at the Kitimat Modernization Project’s Construction Village to make an important announcement.

Rio Tinto has not yet released details regarding the subject of the announcement, but we expect that they will declare the final Board of Director’s approval of the Kitimat Works Modernization project. If this is the case, it will further support their expressed commitment to the development and growth of communities in the region.

BC Hydro has yet to sign a formal contract with the construction group it has chosen to build the Northwest Transmission Line. But the lack of a formal contract with Valard Construction/Burns and McDonnell isn’t holding up work on the line, says BC Hydro’s Lesley Wood.

“What we do have is an interim agreement with them so that they can carry out certain activities, the design work and geotechnical work,” said Woods. It’s all work leading to actual construction, which isn’t scheduled to begin next year anyway, she said.