The provincial government has announced that over 120 households in the First Nations community of Coldwater 1 near Merritt will now have access to high-speed internet services with the installation of new infrastructure.
Behind on budget due to their finance department lacking permanent leadership, the City of Merritt is heading into the annual budgeting process full force in the coming months.
As protesters gathered for their weekly effort to share their ‘Free the Permit’ message, MLA Jackie Tegart arrived in Merritt with other opposition members to support the Aspen Planers employees and contractors affected by recent closures and curtailments at the company’s Merritt mill.
For the fifth week in a row, employees and contractors with Aspen Planers gathered to rally community support for the city’s largest employer, who said this week it still has not received a new cutting permit from the Ministry of Forests.
The 2023 B.C. budget has been released, and government said it focuses on creating affordable housing, growing a clean economy, providing health and mental-health care, and creating opportunities—especially for those most affected by global inflation—to access help with costs.
Two weeks after their first demonstration and no new cutting permits later, Aspen Planers employees and local forestry contractors gathered once again today to deliver their message to the Ministry of Forest: “free the permits!”
Employees of Aspen Planers in Merritt, along with local forestry contractors, are gathering at the Ministry of Forests’ Cascades Natural Resource District office on Airport Road, protesting what they see as a lack of action by the provincial government on the approval of local cutting permits.
Despite the cancellation of a number of B.C. festivals in 2023 due to economic challenges, including Merritt’s Rockin’ River Country Music Festival, another Nicola Valley music festival is moving ahead full force.
One of Merritt’s major economic powerhouses currently lies dormant, closed by a lack of timber supply and government approval of timber harvesting.
With the first intake for Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program (REDIP) funding applications closing on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, the Province of B.C. encourages people to submit applications while they still can.
