Railways are essential to British Columbia's prosperity and pivotal to ensuring the spread of wealth throughout the province, says a government minister.

"The CN-BC Rail deal was not about railways," Graham Bruce, minister of skills development and labour, said last week of the controversial 2003 sale of publicly owned BC Rail to Canadian National Railway for $1 billion. BC Rail links the north and central regions of the province to the Lower Mainland.

"It was about building small-town British Columbia again," Bruce told a recent meeting of the Vancouver Board of Trade.

"We know that Prince Rupert is a day-and-a-half closer to the emerging markets of China and India, and we know we sit right between that hugely populated area and the largest consuming nation the world has ever seen in the United States of America."

Bruce, Cowichan-Ladysmith MLA since 2001, attributed many of the province's economic gains - including the rail deal - to tough decisions made by the Liberal government.

"Structural reform had to happen. There were difficult things to be done and this government was prepared to do it," he said. As a result, "we have more people working in British Columbia than ever before. Unemployment in the province has dropped to single digits."

Bruce outlined a vision for the rail lines that run from Prince Rupert and into the breadbasket of the United States as key to a brighter future for the rural areas of the province.

"Every small town throughout British Columbia, if we do it right, now has the opportunity to be a major manufacturing centre. We can encourage people to stay in their small communities - we can see small-town British Columbia grow again," Bruce said.

Vancouver Board of Trade chief economist Dave Park agreed.

"I think the business community has looked at the CN-BC Rail proposal and realized this is a good deal," he said. "Initially, it was very well received, but when the NDP and the labour unions started carping away at it, conventional wisdom was that it was a bad deal - that they sold the farm.

"Nothing could be further from the truth - this is one of the best deals that has come along in a long time."

Park supported Bruce's suggestion that the province's small towns will benefit from the rail deal. "The immediate seven-per-cent freight rate reduction makes those towns more viable now. There is no question that the changes that have been made have made the railway more efficient.

"There is better and faster transportation from Prince Rupert and Prince George to the eastern parts of the country and the U.S.," said Bruce.

Park disagreed with reports that job losses outweigh the benefits of the new deal. About 400 jobs were axed from BC Rail's workforce of 1,380.

"There were jobs lost as a result of this deal, particularly in North Vancouver and perhaps to a lesser degree in Squamish," he said.

"But the number of jobs lost is small in comparison to the number of jobs we have here in the Lower Mainland. However, the gain in employment up-country, especially in places like Prince George, is significant in comparison to their employment base."

Park noted that job losses in Squamish were partially offset by additional lands granted to the municipality. In his speech, Bruce decried the relationship of the NDP government with the business community over the course of the party's tenure in the 1990s.

According to the minister, the relationship between government and organized labour has rarely been better than under the Liberals.

"In the last full year of administration of the NDP in British Columbia, there were 88 strikes. In 2002, there were 18. In 2003, there were eight.

"Historically, this has probably been the most peaceful time for labour relations in British Columbia."

Provincial estimates indicate that British Columbia will enjoy at least a million job openings provincewide in the coming decade and Bruce said the benefits of reduced unemployment are being felt throughout the province.

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