Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson is down in Victoria to start a new week following up on meetings he had at the Union of BC Municipalities convention.
Simpson says, while the UBCM talks are important and valuable, his meetings today and tomorrow will be different…
“I am getting an hour and a half with the Minister of Forests and i’m getting an hour with the Premier’s office. You just get a longer time to dig in, and you’re not quite frankly getting people who are overwhelmed with 70 meetings in a short period of time, you’re getting them when they’re a lot more focused and can really dig into the conversation you’re having with them.”
Simpson says in addition to emerging social issues such as mental health and addictions and housing, he also plans to continue lobbying around the forestry think tank that Quesnel hosted.
He says with the recent Tolko announcement of their shutdown, it just adds fuel to the fire that we need to think about forestry different…
“We need to re-invent it and we need to make sure that Quesnel can continue to be a forestry town, but with much more innovative manufacturing and a much better landbase management that doesn’t end up with these large pest, disease and fire events that we’re experiencing now.”
Simpson says he doesn’t expect any major announcements during his trip.
Instead, he says it as sort of laying the groundwork for future announcements.