Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West has joined 23 other municipal officials from resource-reliant communities across B.C. in calling on the province to act quickly with economic recovery efforts amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
An open letter to B.C. Premier John Horgan states the new government needs to move quickly to enable shovel-ready projects and encourage international investors so that the province’s “most resilient industries can succeed in uncertain global investment conditions.”
“Over the next four years, supporting responsible natural resource development will continue to be one of the most crucial things that you can do as Premier,” the letter states. “Four fifths of B.C.’s goods exports are resources products. In some way, every community is a resource community. Even so, being a supporter isn’t always easy and we know that having the backing of direct resource communities like ours does help.”
Most of the mayors who signed the letter are from outside the Metro Vancouver region, from Mayor Andy Adams in Campbell River to Mayor Bruno Tassone in Castelgar to Lori Ackerman in Fort St. John. Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum is the only other Lower Mainland official to sign the document.
