North Coast Mayors take tour of Northeast oil and gas fields

When the Mayor settles in to his chair at City Council tonight, he may find some time to share his findings on his recent tour to the North east portion of the province.

Mayor Mussallem spent part of last week touring the Fort St. John region, as he, Port Edward Mayor Dave MacDonald and Prince George Mayor Shari Green accepted the invitation of Fort St. John Mayor Lori Ackerman to come learn more about the industry from the production end.

With oil and gas transportation seemingly a growing part of the Northwest agenda for development, the Mayors took to the tour to discover more about production of oil and gas and how the companies n the field work with those communities that are hosting them.

The Mayor was quite loquacious with local media in Fort St. John, offering up a number of thoughts on the trip to the information portal of Moose FM, among some of his thoughts on the trip:

On why the why the trip was relevant for the visiting Mayors.

"That allows us to get a good overview of how the industry works, get some understanding," says Mussallem. "Also as importantly for us, to get an understanding of how these various companies interact with the communities that they work around."

What they hoped to take home with them from the trip.

"I think the most valuable thing we learned is that there's opportunity for communities, there's opportunity for our residents, that these companies operate at a very high standard, that safety comes first, and they take their work and their behaviour very, very seriously." 

Mayor MacDonald weighed in on the discussion as well, offering up his thoughts on what they hoped to gain from their trip to Fort St. John:

 "We're a very small town, and I'm sure there are going to be lots of questions, so hopefully I can answer some of them now."

City Council and staff perhaps will receive a briefing on his trip tonight, when the October 9th session of city council takes place at City Hall.

For the rest of us, more can be found on the trip from the engergycity.ca website.