T
errace—a northwest-
ern B.C. town of some
11,500 people—has
been going through
the painful process of reinventing
itself over the past decade and
a half, after its major industry,
forestry, went into decline fol-
lowing the closure of the Skeena
Cellulose mill in 2001.
So when a municipal agency
from a port city three hours east
of Beijing approached Terrace
Mayor Dave Pernarowski in 2012
with interest in buying 1,100 acres
of forest€on the€outskirts of town—
to build an alfalfa protein plant
(an ingredient in cow feed)—it was
an unexpected (and welcome)
alternative to the other proposal
being …oated by the province: a
prison. "We've had a lot of people
come into the regions and kick
the tires," says Pernarowski, who
did not seek re-election in last
November's municipal vote. "We
were cautiously optimistic."
Last July, the Quinhuang-
dao€Economic and Technological
Development Zone€purchased
the land for $11.8 million from the
Kitselas First Nation and the city
of Terrace. The move is just one
example of dozens of Chinese
companies surfacing in recent
years with an interest in invest-
ing in B.C. China is currently the
seventh-largest source of foreign
investment in Canada, having
increased 15-fold, from $113
million in 2004 to $16.6 billion
in 2014. Although the federal
JOHN LEHMANN/tHE cANAdiAN prEss (ABOVE) JUNE 2015 BCBusiness 15
T HE MON T HLY IN FOR MER
TMı
"A lot of people have
a misconception that
developers love to
drive up the price of
real estate.... It's the
opposite"
–Will Lin, p.19
"We're a logging
community," says
former terrace
Mayor dave
pernarowski.
"But 10 years
have gone by and
there hasn't been
a lot of logging"
J U N E 2 0 15
Stake in the Ground
N a t u r a l R e s o u r c e s
the chinese used to just want us for our raw natural resources.
Not anymore by Jacob Parry
INSIDE
Borrowing Without the Bank ... Craft Beer! ... Condos in Hipsterland ... Replacing Talent + more ...
Temporary
foreign miners
A controversial HD Mining
project in Tumbler Ridge
has tried to bring in TFWs
