bcbUsiNEss.cA JUNE 2014 BCBusiness 41
and her council, as well as the Haisla
First Nation, to sell non-strateg ic
land assets to help the community
grow for the future.
Monaghan has tried to get subsidies
from both industry and the province
for rental units (mostly for seniors and
those with disabilities), so far with lim-
ited success. "I work on it every day.
I lose sleep over it. I'm trying to put
together developers, BC Housing and
the province," says Monaghan. "Getting
land is the biggest challenge, because
we don't have that much."
Perhaps a bigger question for Alcan
is what impact the arrival of
LNG
export terminals, and an estimated
five- to 10-year buildout of that industry
locally, will have on their workforce.
"The main thing is with people," says
Poirier. "To have more projects coming
in, it would be more challenging for the
labour." However, he expects the
LNG
rush to be only a temporary draw on
local labour pools: "The construction
is a boom. We're going to be here for
another 60 years."
s
teven Forrest's livelihood has
ebbed and flowed with the for-
tunes of Kitimat's big employ-
ers. A lifelong resident, Forrest,
49, owns
TL&T Electric Ltd., a
business formed 40 years ago by his
Irish-immigrant father and three other
partners (but now solely under his con-
trol). It's located on the town's western
shore, among autobody shops and other
industrial contractors.
Forrest is a harried-looking man
who, asked what keeps him up at night,
responds, "I never sleep." He's busy
these days with the Alcan moderniza-
tion project, which represents 40 per
cent of his current business, but he also
has more and more work from the
LNG
operators that are setting up camps in
anticipation of a final investment deci-
sion to build, expected this fall.
The father of four teenagers, For-
rest has seen the boom-and-bust cycle
before. "Historically Kitimat was a three-
company town: Methanex, Eurocan and
Alcan," he explains, gazing out his clut-
tered office window at his boat Cougane
Barra, up on wheels in the parking lot.
"There was no other industry, so people
came to work and did their thing. But
in the past seven years, when Methanex
closed and Eurocan closed—that's when
a shudder was sent through the commu-
nity. After the pulp mill closed at Euro-
can, which was our bread and butter,
we had to ask ourselves: What are we
going to do to hang on?"
Forrest's answer was two-part: diver-
sify (the company, with 12 full-time and
between 20 and 50 part-time work-
ers, now owns property around town,
which it leases to other businesses; it
has also taken on contracts in Alberta
and Taiwan) and develop competen-
cies in other areas (including getting
accredited for electrical work in the oil
and gas sector). His business is growing
p36-49-Kitimat_june.indd 41 2014-05-01 1:30 PM
