Cowichan economic development group honored

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For a young organization like the Khowutzun Development Corporation, recognition for successfully creating jobs in the community is encouraging. So when the group won the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers 1998 recognition award in late November, it was a boost to morale.

Unemployment on Vancouver Island is a problem and unemployment of Cowichan members is of particular concern, said Myles McLeod, new general manager of Khowutzun Development Corporation.

"Job number 1 is to create employment for Cowichan members," he said, and a joint venture agreement struck only a few years ago did just that.

Khowutzun Development Corporation through Khowutzun Mustimuhw Contractors Ltd. entered into an agreement with Centra Gas BC, a company owned by West Coast Energy, to install gas lines. Natural gas was introduced to Vancouver Island in 1990, and since that time, the company has been developing working relationships with a number of the Native communities through which the pipeline would go.

Not satisfied with just financial compensation for right of way through his community, the chief, Dennis Alphonse, wanted economic development for his people, said West Coast Energy manager of external affairs, Doug Halverson.

What resulted from negotiations is the most successful working arrangement West Coast Energy has had with a First Nations community, and a model for other such arrangements. That's why West Coast Energy nominated the group for the CANDO award.

What makes the arrangment so successful is not just the jobs it's created - the venture has provided as many as 80 jobs for Cowichan members who are employed to clear the right of way and to lay pipe on the main and the branch lines - but the commitment to see real economic development for Cowichan Tribe members.

Today, Khowutzun Mustimuhw Contractors Ltd. provides more than 30 per cent of all distribution installations for Centra Gas BC.

"All parties gave it more than 100 per cent," said Halverson. Because Khowutzun Mustimuhw Contractors Ltd. had a real stake in the venture, overcoming obstacles, which would normally frustrate operations, became a group effort. "Everybody had something to win out of it," he said.

The venture was the first of its type signed with the Khowutzun Development Corporation and has been a happy success. West Coast Energy thinks so too and looks forward to a long and contented relationship with one of British Columbia's bigger First Nations populations.

The Khowutzun Development Corporation also runs a successful tourist attraction called the Cowichan Native Village in Duncan.