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Wooden Nickels

Despite being announced in three Throne Speeches since 2009, and in countless speeches by MLA Pat Bell and the three recent Liberal leadership contenders, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre (WIDIC) in Prince George is starting to look more like th
Prince George Citizen Staff

Despite being announced in three Throne Speeches since 2009, and in countless speeches by MLA Pat Bell and the three recent Liberal leadership contenders, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre (WIDIC) in Prince George is starting to look more like the wooden nickel your grandfather warned you about.

The Centre, which was designed to "promote new expertise in advanced building systems, engineered wood products, interior wood design and applications, and other value added products", was suppose to be affiliated with UNBC.

Therein lies the problem. With the WIDIC comes the obvious need for an engineering school at UNBC, one which given it's enrollment challenges it feels it can neither afford nor support, especially downtown.

At the same time, UNBC faces enormous pressure from MLA's Bell and Bond and numerous other movers and shakers in PG who see the WIDIC as the cornerstone for a revitalized downtown, just as we seek to showcase our city in the 2015 Winter Games.

How else to explain the city dropping a cool $2.5 million to buy the PG Hotel back in March 2010, except as a possible site for WIDIC.

Now with UNBC dragging it's feet on the engineering school, and Pat Bell and the Liberals in danger of looking like Pinnochio on the issue, speculation has turned to the College of New Caledonia as an alternative option for the engineering facility.

Converting CNC to a BCIT North has been discussed before and given the labour shortages facing our resource and transportation industries in the north, it is an idea whose time has arrived.

With the WIDIC downtown, supporters of a revitalized downtown could stop worrying that Mayor Dan and Council might steal a page from Joanie Mitchell's song and "pave paradise (the PG Hotel site) and put up yet another parking lot."

The Wood Innovation and Design Centre is a good idea and would be a welcome catalyst to a new downtown.

It would be a shame if the ingenuity and commitment that brought us UNBC, a medical school, the Northern Sports Centre and the Northern Cancer Centre could not be mustered to see this landmark building brought to reality.

As they say in Prince George, its "time to get er done"