Why is it, that a grant of $40 million dollar grant would make or break the development of the Port of Prince Rupert?

The development should be based on sound business principles, and that means it should also either be viable as an investment or it should not. Without government grants.

Obviously the people at Westpac Terminals who are planning to build a $200 million LNG terminal near Prince Rupert feel that way. They see the benefits of building an LNG terminal in a port far away from the congestion in the Port of Vancouver, and build a terminal that is best suited for a sparsely populated area like Prince Rupert, due to the danger involved in handling floating bombs.

Having the Port of Prince Rupert is a good idea, and it would seem that this is an idea that has other followers, like Galveston LNG Inc., who are also planning a $500 million LNG terminal in near by Kitimat.

Yes, the Port of Prince Rupert is well positioned to help alleviate the congestion in the Port of Vancouver, but it is also well situated to help diversify the nature of port business, if it were to be part of a Superport Agency that has all ports on the West Coast under one umbrella. This would mean having a point contact by any shipper in the world, with fewer bureaucrats and more people out selling our ports and more people on the wharfs doing the work, would be a much better way of spending our tax dollars. After all the City of Vancouver has a much higher profile in the world of shipping by sea, that the Port of Prince Rupert will have to spend money to build from a dead stop.

If as Port of Prince Rupert's President, Don Krussel says, the $40 million as a loan would make the port unprofitable, nor the other handouts it has been promised, and people at TSI Terminal Systems think the west coast does not need another container port anytime soon, does this make good business sense for the Canadian taxpayer to put their money on the line? The only reason the Provincial governments sees it as a good idea, is that they have a provincial election around the corner.

This is such an important issue for the area around Prince Rupert they did not even vote Liberal.