Fisheries committee  Yes, the regional district has a significant tourism sector. We have quite a number of hotels in our communities, and the municipalities largely serve the resource sector most of the year. However, a significant number of lodges in the Broughton Archipelago and elsewhere rely on recreational sport-fishing clientele and ecotourists for their income.

Fisheries committee  If you sell more net pen development, firstly, you would be looking at maybe some more employment opportunities in the processing area based in Port Hardy. You wouldn't necessarily be looking at any great increases in farm-site worker employment, given the current industrial model of eight days on and six off.

Fisheries committee  The only comment I'd make is to echo what you've just said. We're not dealing with an either-or situation. The north island is very well positioned to maintain open-pen operations. We also need to look at closed containment technologies and their potential for niche sectors in domestic and international markets.

Fisheries committee  I think it's important when talking about the private sector—I assume that you've had or will have presentations from the private sector—to bear in mind, as I indicated in my report for Mayor Furney, that there are other research and development activities going on in the global industry, focusing largely on much larger open-pen activities further out to sea.

Fisheries committee  That's just the municipal population. The regional district's overall population, including unincorporated and first nations, is 11,500.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it is significant. The bulk of that value is retained through the processing plant that Marine Harvest Canada holds in Port Hardy. I will pass that report along to your clerk. The value that's produced from our region is shared with neighbouring areas as well. We don't have a lot of employment in farm site work, for example, by local residents at this time.

Fisheries committee  There's a distinct problem in farm site employment. Marine Harvest Canada has made significant efforts in the last couple of years to boost the number of local workers that manage their farm sites in the Broughton Archipelago, the Quatsino site, and elsewhere. However, we have companies like Mainstream Canada with a number of farm sites that offer little in the way of local employment, mainly due to the fact that commute workers operate the sites and the fish harvested from those sites are delivered to Campbell River instead of our region for processing.

Fisheries committee  There are no new farm sites in the Regional District of Mount Waddington, but there are two existing farm sites. I believe they're known as Duncan and Doyle, in either electoral area A or B. They have undergone a significant expansion of their capacity in the last 18 months.

Fisheries committee  It's no problem at all.