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For earlier materials see Table of Contents

December 19^th	SQCRD meeting
	Overview

Elections were no surprise

· Electoral Areas minutes useful

· As is the correspondence from Kutz to MIEDs

· See especially the Agriculture strategy

· Reports – esp policing & SMFCA

· Containers & Panama Canal worries

There were no surprises Mussallem and Pages were nominated for Chair, after a secret ballot, Pages was declared re-elected Vote was complicated by all the QCI/HG reps remaining on Island and calling from the QC office Which means they missed the Drinks and Dinner affair held after the meeting at a local hotel--- presumably at taxpayers (read PR) expense but we were not invited	First the ‘mandatory’ elections etc

Some of the best information contained here --- there was a section on the Gas Tax and how it must be spent – value estimated to be $209,604/ year from Feds Details Monday. The minutes these Area Directors’ meetings should be available on Web (I suggest)	Lots of business conducted at meeting for this late in year
	There was also an interesting discussion of $$ collected by taxes for MIEDS in 2009 (more later) Area D = $10,844 & Area E = $6,656 More Later · Acting CAO has done her homework: seems SQCRD is ultimately responsible and liable for Dodge Cove and Sandspit’s water · MIMC has administrative functions but SQCRD has ‘ultimate decision making authority’ – More later

		We have mail:
		Letter from MOE on ‘15$ head tax’ --- denies any such thing but something in works to help offset the K’tzim-a-deen Ranger program costs (more later)
Item 7.3 Oona River Community Association wants $$ Is this a ‘Regional perspective’ or Oona River as the Area?	Wants 5T$ to move scrap iron and old ‘white goods’ -- There is a ‘Regional Waste Management fund of 15T$ said to be ‘intended’ for this kind of thing – I bet the native villages etc never heard about it though ---- 2T$ ‘rent’ seems high – Plus I am dubious ‘Delivery’ to Recycling will be ‘Free’ or no $$ required for white goods etc (as said to be ‘unserviceable’)--- and the old metals (bicycle frames etc ) might just show up in PR land fill Note Google sees a DFO contract valued at 75T$ for ‘unspecified works’ going to ORCA . Perhaps the Docks??

Item 7.4 MIEDS wants to develop an Agriculture Strategy

Food Strategy- producing local veggies etc on QCI/ HG Good idea – When I suggested that would be good idea for our area (‘Food Security’/ Hundred mile diet etc) Des said we should wait and see what this group comes up with

As usual there was a well written report from QCI Rec co-ordinator as Report 8.1 Report 8.2 was Terms of Reference for rural policing ‘problems’ which emerged from C2C locally	Regional District looking towards Villages
	Des Nobles was appointed to the new working group – though it was mentioned there are problems on QCIs too dealing with rural policing – but it is a start I had such high hopes for C2C process – especially now that Economic Development $$ from Areas A & C going towards PREDC – see below

Report 8.5 Note the tentative meeting is to be on January 20^th – subsequent to the SMFCA (Sustainable Marine Fisheries and Communities Alliance) meeting for 18^th & 19^th in Rupert --- which was added to agenda – more later	Interesting and will be dealt with later

An excellent article in Economist magazine on the widening etc of Panama Canal Here is a more recent news story from Houston Texas where Wal-Mart etc already building warehouses	Panama Canal upgrading will compete with Container ships form Asia trade that PR Port thought was theirs by virtue being ‘closer to Asia’ etc

More Later etc

Created by LG on 19/12/2009

Last updated on Sunday, December 20, 2009