NINO Roldo’s right when he talks about the potential of the Northwest Transmission Line.
The local businessman, who led an effort last spring urging local businesses to support construction of the line, says he saw friends leave when the economy collapsed after the forest industry here all but disappeared. And with them went the promise of families, young families, the kind that’s needed in order for a community to grow.
But now, Mr. Roldo continues, the power line means a renewed chance for families to take root, for young people to stay instead of leaving.
Kitselas Chief Councillor Glenn Bennett and Nisga’a Lisims Government president Mitchell Stevens are also right.
Both have signed deals which provide jobs and business contracts for their people arising from the power line’s construction. And both have consistently said that as the economic situation of the Kitselas and of the Nisga’a improve, so will the economic situation of everyone else.
British Columbians have got into the habit of expecting two sides, one to oppose and one to support, to automatically square off when it comes to industrial development.
That this did not happen with the Northwest Transmission Line may have something to do with the relatively benign nature of the project.
But it also speaks to what can happen when people have a common goal.
This editorial appears in the March 9, 2011 print edition of The Terrace Standard, Terrace, BC.