[amor de cosmos]

Ridley Terminals signs major deal with First Nations
By Derrick Penner, Canwest News Service
June 26, 2009

The operator of Prince Rupert's major coal-loading terminal and regional First Nations signed an agreement yesterday that will see native communities offered a right of first refusal on capital contracts awarded by the Crown-owned facility.

The terms of what the two sides are calling an opportunities agreement call for Ridley Terminals to offer Coast Tsimishain communities a chance to bid on any request-for-proposal worth more than $500,000.

As part of the agreement, Ridley is expected to "make commercially reasonable efforts" to solicit First Nations' participation by breaking up large contracts into smaller components that they can handle.

"I'm sure there are some who will say this is social engineering, but it isn't," Daniel Veniez, Ridley Terminals Inc.'s chairman said in an interview. "It's recognition of a reality and a business opportunity as we see it."

The reality, Veniez said, is that the region's First Nations are under-represented in the Ridley terminal's workforce, making up about five to six per cent of its 100-member workforce when aboriginals are some 60 per cent of the Prince Rupert region's overall population.

The business opportunity, he added, is tapping and helping to foster the business skills of that population.

Veniez said the Crown-owned terminal will give First Nations a 30-day first opportunity to look at its requests-for-proposal contracts to determine if they want to bid on them, or form partnerships with outside firms to take on the work.

However, he added that aboriginal bidders will not get "special dispensation" when it comes to the terminal's commercial decisions to award contracts.

"These guys have to come in and make sense from a cost, from an efficiency, from a productivity point of view," Veniez said.

To John Helin, chief councillor of the local Lax Kw' alaams aboriginal community, the opportunity agreement is a "very refreshing" acknowledgement of First Nation communities.

"What it means to me is we're not bringing some company into court kicking and screaming about our aboriginal rights and title," Helin said, and hopes it can serve as a template for other companies operating in the north west.

Helin said the parties need to strike a joint implementation committee so that First Nations can "find out what's available and how we can access it."

Initially, Helin said he expects First Nations will do a lot of bridge building with other contractors while his people gain education and training, but he eventually hopes the agreement will help deliver some much- needed jobs to his community, which he said suffers greater than 80 per cent unemployment.

"I think when you empower your people through economic means it relieves some of the pressure on the social structure," Helin added.

http://www.timescolonist.com/Ridley+...737/story.html