BC Check Up holds good news

Apr 10, 2023 | 4:19 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – “No surprises.”

That’s how Corey Naphtali with KPMG describes the most recent BC Check Up from the Chartered Accountants of BC. It shows housing starts in the Cairboo region declined in 2022 over the record that was the year before.

“And I think with high-interest rates and mixed confidence levels, that’s probably what we would anticipate. But we’ve got some good news on major projects with Artemis Gold going and some of the other, you know, big capital projects. And then I think that there’s going to be a lot of public spending with Northern Health and potentially building a tower and I mean just some other big kind of public money that’s going to come into and it’s really going to hopefully carry us through what could potentially be just a softening in the economy and hopefully that will time well with the next rebound.”

But Prince George bucked that trend, holding the course in 2022, compared to other communities in the region.

“We’ve heard it even from when one of the major banks came here with their chief economist and said, no, no, Prince George will likely buck the trend,” says City Councillor Garth Frizzell. “e are seeing increased construction and we’re seeing plans for more construction going ahead. So we’re going to patiently watch and analyze the numbers as they come in. But so far, the forecast is good going through the rest of the year.”

The City has pulled together a housing demand report and Frizzell noted there is an expectation of further housing construction.

“The interesting part is going to be watching what the province does with the increase in housing for publicly funded. Now, that’s that’s not something that, of course, is done at the municipal level. It’s there’s some contribution from the federal government as well. But we are going to watch closely because there have been a lot of announcements. Now we want to see where the rubber hits the road.”

Despite COVID, the economy of the region has managed to stay healthy due to major projects. BC Check Up notes $16 billion in major projects in the third quarter of last year, unchanged from the third quarter of the previous year. It also notes 25 proposed major projects worth $12 billion in the hopper.

“I think there is optimism just because we still have, you know, major projects that are either coming online or that have been announced,” says Naphtali. “I think what we concern me, maybe it would be looking out to the future a little bit more and really getting kind of comfortable with what’s in that pipeline beyond those projects that we all know about, just to kind of continue the economic kind of momentum and growth.”

Since the report was produced, there has been a pair of major projects receive environmental approval, including Artemis’ Blackwater mine and Haisla’s Cedar LNG project.