For all the times in the past 25 years that some residents have proclaimed that this event or that event is “another nail in the coffin” for Prince George, it now seems clear that all of these claims are all nails and no coffin.
Put another way, rumours of Prince George’s pending death have been greatly exaggerated.
But every time something bad happens, somebody brings out the nails and goes looking for a coffin. Downtown Prince George has been dying for more than 40 years apparently yet new businesses keep opening, new development keeps happening. Prince George’s downtown is more than just Northern Hardware, folks.
Downtown is on life support this time for sure, the gloom and doomers say, with the growing street population and the ongoing problems with homelessness, addictions, illicit drugs, crime and mental health. These issues are greater now than in the past but they are also not new and likely will always be with us in some form. Fortunately, more attention and resources are being applied to address these challenges than ever before. Those efforts take time, but as more supportive and affordable housing comes online, things should get better.
At The Citizen, we have some direct experience with predictions that we’re finished as a business because we’ve been hearing it for the past 20 years. Six days a week to five to weekly publication of the newspaper were all met with “another nail in the coffin” nods of confidence, often followed by “good riddance.” Yet here we remain in 2022, still in business, still making money, still reporting important stories, reaching 1.5 million page views from 300,000-plus unique visitors to our website per month and growing, according to Google Analytics.
Please don’t mistake this for a rose-coloured glasses view of Prince George. Businesses are closing and jobs are being lost. Pacific BioEnergy’s closure, the temporary and permanents shutdowns of mills across the forest sector and the relentless pressure on retail outlets and frontline workers hurt. People are suffering and are rightfully angry about many things.
Prince George’s resilience, however, comes from a willingness throughout this city’s history for residents to come together to do something about problems, to take control and take action, not just hold another meeting to air grievances and whine about how somebody else should fix it.
The inspiration is right in front of us. The two statues of individuals in Prince George are of Terry Fox and Bridget Morgan, two amazing people who were too busy working for change to complain much. They didn’t accomplish what they did without help. They had plenty of allies who backed their cause.
This week, UNBC student Vova Pluzhnikov ran 44 kilometres to raise money for the 44 million citizens of his home country Ukraine being invaded by Vladimir Putin’s Russian Army. Many friends and fellow students joined him. He hoped to bring in $44,000 but Prince George residents stepped up and he’s now raised more than $60,000.
Running towards the problem or running away from it.
The choice will always be ours.
