Premier Christy Clark wants B.C. to be among the top two provinces in GDP growth by 2015 — a central target for her Canada Starts Here: The B.C. Jobs Plan, which she officially announced Thursday.
But Clark was unwilling to put an estimate on the total number of direct jobs that would be created from the plan.
“It’s not responsible to come up with phoney numbers,” Clark said.
Clark was confident that job creation is viable for B.C. industries by opening markets to overseas investment, especially to China and India.
“B.C. has a wealth of intelligence and natural resources that the world is hungry for,” Clark said.
Mining was one of the sectors Clark proposed to expand by opening eight new B.C. mines by 2015, developing infrastructure, and easing red-tape policies.
“Sometimes government needs to get out of the way,” she said on the proposal of opening an office to deal with approval delays.
“It might be a yes, it might be a no, but the process needs to be faster,” she said.
First Nations were not ignored on the agenda for creating jobs. The plan proposes to establish an Aboriginal Business and Investment Council that will partner companies with business initiatives in First Nations communities.
Clark emphasized that the program will be largely funded by private investment, not taxes.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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