Last week saw the Mayor of Kitimat, Phil Germuth, the Elected Chief of the Haisla Nation, Maureen Nyce and the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith get together for a meeting.
Mayor Germuth ended up later providing some details on what was discussed at the meeting and how it originated;
“The meeting was nothing more than an introduction. I came up with this earlier in the spring after the Federal Government said they want to look at other avenues for Canada to get our resources elsewhere. And if you can’t go south, there’s not too much North, so you’re either going west or east and being on the west coast, anything that might be going to Asia would be going through either the Port of Vancouver, Prince Rupert or Kitimat. I thought it would be a good idea at that time to at least introduce Kitimat to the Premier of Alberta and go from there.”
Germuth also emphasized that the meeting happening right before the announcement of the Federal Government and Alberta’s new memorandum of understanding was purely coincidental as the meeting was scheduled about two months prior.
And while it was said that not much was discussed outside of the parties becoming more familiar with one another, Germuth was optimistic that everyone left the meeting on the same page;
“I thought we did. No actual project was discussed in any way so it was just leaving with a commitment that we hope to get together in the future and talk about other things.”