Bruce Ralston is in town today as part of his new portfolio as Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and a local MLA would like to hear a big announcement but he’s not holding his breath.

Kamloops – North Thompson’s Liberal MLA Peter Milobar was on the NL Morning News and pointed to the overall inaction from the province under the energy portfolio. “It would be interesting if we could actually have an application in for a new mine somewhere in British Columbia.”

“We haven’t seen anything in the last three and a half years of note and I think that underlines an overall narrative that based on the fighting of permanent projects that we’ve seen out of this government.”

Milobar didn’t seem too optimistic about the NDP announcing any new activity in the sector ands he wondered about investor’s confidence. “Larger capital projects are really questioning if it’s the right time to bother with the fight or should they be looking at other jurisdictions around North America and the world to place their capital and let the dust settle in British Columbia so, hopefully he’ll get a good handle on that and we can actually see some ramped up exploration and projects coming through the pipeline.”

Ralston, who was moved into the porfolio January 22nd, will be visiting the New Afton and Highland Valley Copper mines while he’s in the area.