The Cariboo Regional District's director for Area L, Eric de Vries, has been appointed to the board of the Northern Central Local Government Association.
de Vries' appointment as the CRD's regional representative was announced on Wednesday, June 11, in a press release by the NCLGA. After attending his first meeting on Saturday, June 21 de Vries said he is looking forward to working with NCLGA to make the voice of northern and central B.C. heard.
"Saturday was my first board meeting with the NCLGA and I was very positively surprised with the effectiveness. That's always my worry, coming from the private sector, how effective is our governance groups? I measure everything to the output, so what's the output of your meeting, what comes out of it, and that was very positive," de Vries described. "Very well planned, everyone was assigned a task and from there everybody does their work."
The NCLGA is an organization made up of representatives of B.C.'s central and northern regional districts and municipalities whose goal is to connect communities and represent their interests in Victoria. First established in 1955, the association includes the CRD, the Northern Rockies Regional District, the Peace River Regional District, the Fraser Fort George Regional District, the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, the Regional District of Bulkley- Nechako, the North Coast Regional District, Smithers, Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Chetwynd and Mackenzie.
As individual regional districts and municipalities, de Vries said, they sometimes struggle with getting their voices heard by the province. The NCLGA allows them to amplify their voice and draw attention to the common issue that impacts each community, such as issues with road conditions.
"We can also do some comparison between the regional district (like) how do we deal with certain problems?" de Vries said. "We can benchmark each other to see what solutions you have to this problem and which direction you're going."
de Vries added that the NCLGA also brings resolutions before the annual Union of BC Municipalities, which are then presented to the provincial government for consideration. One example of a resolution the NCLGA has worked on is addressing the shortage of blood plasma for hospitals.
Currently, de Vries said that if you want to donate blood, you have to go to the Lower Mainland, as there are no permanent blood donation clinics in the central and northern regions of B.C. The consequence, he said, is that B.C. only produces 20 per cent of the blood plasma hospitals need, with the rest coming in from the United States.
"Now we all know the current situation with the U.S. is not that we really want to have a huge dependence on the U.S., right?" de Vries said. "The regional districts, all together, approved a resolution where we pushed the provincial government to reopen a blood donor office or clinic in the north, so we can reduce that dependence on U.S. blood plasma."
Canadian Blood Services confirmed that up to 70 per cent of the immunoglobulins Canadian patients need come from the global market, which is largely made from blood plasma that originates in the U.S. They also said they do not have any plans, at this time, to open up a plasma donor centre in Prince George.
The NCLGA meets quarterly, with de Vries noting he will also be taking part in monthly Zoom meetings as part of his position on the NCLGA's Indigenous Relations Committee. He'll be serving a term for a year, after which he can choose to either stay on or allow the CRD to appoint a new director.
"It broadens your view, as a regional district director, on the bigger picture. How do things work, how can we make contact with ministries and how can we get things going," de Vries said. "Through the NCLGA you learn more about how the networking in governance works, so I'm very pleased to be involved with that."
