Office
of the Mayor
Village of Gold River
June 14, 2004
Gold River - Village of Gold River Mayor David Lewis today released the details of a key agreement that has been signed between his Village and Grieg Seafood BC Ltd. The agreement that will run until December 31, 2006, provides Grieg with the opportunity to utilize the Village's wharf in Gold River to ship their West Coast farm raised salmon to their new processor on Quadra Island (Walcan Seafoods). Recently, numerous jobs at Walcan had been threatened when Marine Harvest Canada decided to stop processing fish locally, choosing instead to send them to Port Hardy.
"There has been a significant amount of bad press surrounding the Marine Harvest decision, which has led many supporters of fin-fish operations to second guess their support for this industry. This agreement should help restore some of our faith as Grieg, Walcan and the Village have worked together to find an acceptable solution to a difficult short term situation" said Lewis.
Walcan has secured work for many of its employees over the next two and a half years by negotiating a new agreement with Grieg to process their fish on Quadra Island. Grieg in turn has shown tremendous support for the Village of Gold River by agreeing to pay a reasonable levy for every pound of fish that crosses the Gold River wharf. The agreement could be worth close to 3/4 million dollars over the life of the agreement.
"The parties sat down and worked out a solution that was acceptable to all. There was no clear cut winner in the deal, instead everyone got something that they needed in order to get through the next couple of years which will see an excess of processing capacity. Both Walcan and Grieg should be commended for the lengths that they have gone to support our local economies in Gold River and Quadra Island. This is how it should be done," says Lewis.
Another key component of the deal was that the Village of Gold River will put between 24% and 50% of its revenues from the agreement into a reserve that will be dedicated to help develop a local processing plant. Walcan and the Village are currently working on a secondary agreement to help ensure the operational success of the partnership.
"The key for
us has always been to have locally raised fish processed locally; however,
given the current production and processing capacity levels a west coast
plant is not viable at this time. Hopefully this agreement will give us
the ability to achieve our end goal of a local processing plant the next
time around. The aquaculture industry holds promise for small coastal
economies like ours. This agreement will help to provide local citizens
with a concrete example of some of those benefits," said Lewis.
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