The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1954, Síða 22

20
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1954
day. At Port Alberni the Bloedel int-
erests increased the capacity of their
pulp plant. In the making are two
new pulp plants on Vancouver Is-
land,one at Duncan Bay, adjoining the
newsprint plant, and a new develop-
ment, a pulp plant, on the east coast
of the Island between Victoria and
Nanaimo, owned by the B. C. Forest
Products—another mill to use mill and
forest waste. At Prince Rupert there
is a new plant built by Columbia Cel-
lulose which produces 70,000 tons an-
nually of high-grade cellulose pulp
for shipment to rayon mills of the U.S.
and Canada. May I observe here that
on a visit to this plant about two years
ago I met four fine young men who
were employed at the plant. When I
asked them where they were from, they
replied, “Manitoba”. Your loss is B.
C.’s gain. We need young men of that
type to help to develop our Province.
Most spectacular of the projects
planned is the laying of a cable under
the sea to the Mainland to Vancouver
Island to take care of the ever-in-
creasing demand for power on Van-
couver Island. The underwater circuit
will consist of four separate cables—
three for normal operation, the other
as a spare. By midsummer of 1956,
132,000 volts of electric power—enough
to light two million sixty-watt bulbs—
will be flashing through a cable on
the sea floor of the Gulf of Georgia to
link Vancouver Island to the company’s
Mainland system.
The construction of the Trans-
Mountain Oil Pipeline from Alberta
to the Lower Mainland of B. C. is
completed. This will carry oil from Al-
berta to the Lower Mainland of B. C.,
and to two new refineries being con-
structed in the State of Washington.
As a result of this development a new
refinery is under construction at Kam-
loops. The Imperial Oil Co. has a com-
pleted construction of a new refinery
at IOCO, and Shell and Standard Oil
Companies are increasing the capacity
of their refineries at Burnaby.
Announcement has just been made
of the shipment by The Imperial Oil
Co. of four and a half million gallons
of gasoline, to Japan—the first of its
kind in the history of Canada.
In addition we have the prospects
of a pipe-line to carry natural gas from
the Peace River area of British
Columbia and Northern Alberta down
through the centre of B. C., to the
Lower Mainland and to the States of
Washington and Oregon. This project
will cost in the neighbourhood of 113
million dollars.
There are many other projects
under consideration—the development
of power in the northeastern part of
the Province and the adjoining Yukon
Territory; the proposed Celgar
Development in the Kootenays. Time
does not permit a further review. How-
ever, I am safe in saying that B. C. is
maintaining its position with the rest
of Canada in moving ahead at a very
fast gait.
In concluding my remarks, Mr. Pres-
ident, I feel that Canada will continue
to move ahead at a high rate. Much
will depend on ourselves, whether we
be those who labour in industry or
those who have the responsibility to
direct our industries. There must be
a realization by all that we have enter-
ed a more competitive era than the
one we have enjoyed during the post-
war years—lower prices in world
markets, the difficulty many of our
best customers of previous years are
experiencing in the way of shortage of
dollars create a real problem for Can-
adians. Looking back over the period
which I have hurriedly reviewed to-