MarineHarvestCanada.com

In 2011, Marine Harvest took a look at its safety performance and decided that our primary focus on compliance with regulations, policy and procedures

was not getting the results that we needed. People continued to put themselves or their co-workers at risk and continued to be injured – sometimes quite seriously. We needed to do something different to make a change; we needed to change the way we think about ourselves and the way we work!

Marine Harvest works with a company called Sentis, which has developed a program called Brainsafe to help us - help ourselves. Brainsafe is a long-term process to change our safety mindset. It is designed to offer information and skills to assist you in taking greater control of your personal safety, at work and at home. It gives you insight into the way your brain works, your thinking and the attitudes and values you have about safety. It will give you the tools to make the right decisions about working safely and will help you to help your co-workers work safely.

Over the next year, you will see a great deal of focus and activity around Brainsafe. To start,

Wharfside In This IssueWelcome to Brainsafe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Spawning Success at Marine Harvest Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Temporary Opportunity Translates into Long-term Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Innovation at Thurlow Point Farm . . . . . . 3

Christmas Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Christmas Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Meet your Marine Harvest Master Facilitators! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

BCSALMONFACTS.CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

January 2012

CANADA

all employees will attend a very interesting and entertaining two day training session. Our leadership team was the first to attend this training in December. The training is being facilitated by Joy Stowe, Blaine Tremblay, Glen Molland and Kristian Fletcher, your co-workers who have attended two full weeks of Brainsafe training. This training will be followed up with different types of communication and promotion of Brainsafe activities.

We believe this attention to not only the “how to do it”, but also to the “why do we do it” will help each of us focus on working AND living more safely. This is a big commitment by the

company to improve employee safety. More importantly, it will require a big commitment by each of us. For Brainsafe to succeed, each of us must make the commitment to actively participate

in the training, and then follow through at our worksite and at home. Brainsafe is not a rule, or a policy/procedure, it is a change in the way we think, act and respond to each other.

Welcome to Brainsafe

By Dean Dobrinsky, Human Resources

Director

Please email comments, articles and ideas to Ian Roberts, Communications Manager

at ian.roberts@marineharvest.com

Comments about this Newsletter?

Did you Know?You blink 15,000 times a day, and

women blink more than men.

Can you solve this Puzzle?

I start with the letter “e” and end with the letter “e” and I usually contain one letter,

but I am not the letter “e”. What am I?

Answer on Page 4

“Implementation of Brainsafe is a top priority for Marine Harvest Canada in 2012 and we expect it will have a large impact on the attitude towards safety in our company”.

Vincent Erenst, Managing Director

MarineHarvestCanada.com2

Salmon have been raised at stock enhancement hatcheries around the world since the late 1800’s, but these hatcheries have historically and currently relied on annual capture and spawning of adult salmon returning to rivers to produce the next generation. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Norwegian and Scottish salmon farmers managed to raise salmon in a contained space for their entire lifecycle and, while most captive salmon were harvested for profit, kept some fish back in order to produce the next generation.

Today Marine Harvest Canada annually produces approximately 25 million green eggs, in house, to meet its ongoing production requirements. In BC, there are no independent egg producers and importation of eggs to Canada is very rare and if allowed, is strictly regulated. It is therefore important that salmon farmers protect the genetic integrity of the stocks they have while making improvements to their performance.

“The egg production cycle takes considerable time and requires several years of planning,” says Dean Guest, MHC’s Freshwater Production Manager. “Each fall, brood stock are selected from saltwater sites and transported to a freshwater water brood site. For example, brood selected in the fall of 2011 will produce eggs in the fall of 2012, that will first feed as fry in 2013, smolt in the spring of 2014, reach market size in 2015, and brood again in 2016.”

The majority of MHC’s brood stock are currently reared in salt water, but at MHC’s Fresh Water Farms site in Duncan, BC, 10 million eggs are spawned per year from brood that never see salt water. “They are kept in fresh water to add another layer of protection for our brood stock,” adds Dean.

Two unique strains of brood stock, Mowi and McConnell, are used at MHC. To date they have

been reared as separate brood lines and only crossed as production fish.

“In the past, 150 new families were created each year to continue the brood lines into the next generation,” explains Dean, “and a family is created by mating a single male with a single female.”

Starting this fall, MHC will be creating 600 families that include both pure strains and hybrid crosses. The families will be mixed at the eyed egg stage to produce smaller groups of 2500 smolt, and grown to harvest size at sea. By taking tissue samples at the time of harvest, each fish can be identified by stock and family. Collecting information on these fish at the processing plant, such as weight and maturation, allows MHC to select families for the next generation, with a focus on improving performance.

Spawning Success at Marine Harvest Canada“Closing the cycle” is how farming began. It was what turned us from hunters and gatherers to farmers. It began with terrestrial farming thousands of years ago and has only recently, relatively speaking, become possible in the water environment thanks to the relentless endeavors of aquaculture pioneers.

MHC Technician Phil Heyward and a future proud parent

MarineHarvestCanada.com 3

By Gina Forsyth

For Newfoundland native Roger King, a temporary three week job vaccinating fish for Stolt Sea Farm in early 1994 has led to a fulfilling

career. Roger is Logistics Coordinator based at Middlepoint, north of Campbell River, where he ensures the farm sites have what they need when they need it, whether it’s nets or cage moorings. Roger plays an integral role with the warehousing and logistics team based at Middle Point.

Born near Port Rexton in Trinity Bay, NFLD, Roger and his wife Allison got to know each other in childhood, connected as many from “The Rock” are through long-time family friendships. The youngest of five kids, Roger did two years at Memorial University as well as crab processing for eight years. In the meantime, Allison’s cousin Jody was employed by Stolt here on Vancouver Island. “She suggested we come west during our annual lay-off time and see what the industry offered,” explained Roger. Their timing was

fortunate, since Stolt had recently bought Georgie Lake hatchery, where they became staff. Roger later did logistics at Englewood Packing in Port McNeill from 1994-2009, before transferring down island.

Roger and Alison have two kids – Madison (9) and Nicholas (14), who has special needs. “The North Island was good to us but there are more services for Nicholas in Campbell River so when the opportunity to transfer arose, we made the move,” said Roger. The King family now enjoys bike riding together, an activity that was made possible this past summer by the donation of a custom-made bike to Nicholas through Variety Club of BC. The family also enjoys bowling, camping, and of course following the Vancouver Canucks.

Visitors to Marine Harvest always remark that our operations are kept shiny clean. But this reputation requires diligent attention to detail. As any farmer will tell you, one area that can be quite time consuming is the clean-up of stray feed pellets within a feed shed. Feed left exposed can become contaminated or lose much of its nutritional value to our salmon. Keeping the shed clean of spilled or loose feed pellets is not only good practice, but it’s also part of our regulations. Cleaning out the edges of the feed hoppers can be time consuming and sometimes dangerous, especially in the situations when lifting or removing the heavy grates are needed to get at exposed feed.

Here is a simple and effective way to solve this time consuming problem. The team at Thurlow

used thick rubber to frame the top edges of the grates. These Grate Guards are attached at the bottom with small zap straps and rest slightly above the top of the hopper, so in the event of removal, the rubber will not be damaged or chafed. These guards can be pulled outward without removing the secured bottom edge, whenever a farmer wants to inspect the grates.

Dan Pattison

Assistant Manager, Thurlow Point

Temporary Opportunity Translates into Long-term Career

Innovation at Thurlow Point Farm

From one coast to the other

MarineHarvestCanada.com

Christmas DonationsChristmas Donations

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MHC once again supported several worthy charitable organizations this Christmas. A total of $10,000 was evenly divided between the Knights of Columbus Hamper Fund, Salvation Army, Campbell River Food Bank, Campbell River and North Island Transition Society and North Island Hamper Fund.

In addition to monetary support, staff in various operating areas gathered food, clothing and household goods to donate to charitable groups needing the assistance.

Christmas Donations

Answer: Envelope

99.7 “The River” DJ Dave Reynolds (left) shows his admiration for Stephen Budgeon and the crew at Marine Harvest!

Tanya Romas (Primary Manager, PHPP), at right, dropped off a $2000 cheque to the North Island Gazette’s Christmas Hamper Fund. Receiving the cheque is Julie Meredith.

Knights of Columbus Hamper Fund volunteers Huli Segger (left) and John Dawson (right) really appreciated the help from Marine Harvest.

MarineHarvestCanada.com 5

Kevin and Betty at the Salvation Army were thrilled to receive $2000 from Ian Roberts. For the past several years the Salvation Army has also received weekly donations of fresh salmon to provide for their lunch program.

MHC staff and ladies soccer players from the MHC ‘Bandits’ dropped by the “River Relief Truck” to donate over 500 pounds of food. Over three full truck loads of food were collected for the Campbell River Food Bank. Wow!

Debbie Ashcroft (IT) and Stephen Budgeon (Planning Manager) collected $500 from generous peers, purchased turkeys, and donated them all to the River Relief Truck.

Anne Minosky at the Campbell River Food Bank accepts a cheque from MHC’s Ian Roberts

Christmas DonationsChristmas DonationsChristmas Donations

MarineHarvestCanada.com

Do you know why farm-raised salmon are one of the most efficient livestock in the world?

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bit.ly/MHCanadatwitter.com/MHCanada facebook.com/MHCanada

The first group of MHC staff attended Brainsafe training in December. The two day training was very informative, practical, interactive and fun! The Brainsafe program and Marine Harvest’s very own Master Facilitators are now rolling out training to all staff. Upcoming training days are:

I want to let you know that our fundraiser was a huge success. We raised $4500 and it all will be sent to Mennonite Central Committee for use in East Africa famine relief. The salmon was prepared perfectly and was a huge hit. Thanks so much and I wish you and your company much success and I will continue to applaud you and Marine Harvest for the way you contribute to our community and beyond.

Pastor Gordon Carter

Black Creek United Mennonite Church

Meet your Marine Harvest Master Facilitators!

Dear Marine Harvest;

MHC Brainsafe Master Facilitators (l-r): Joy Stowe, Glen Molland, Blaine Tremblay, Kristian Fletcher

Month Date Working Area

January 3, 4 MHC managers

January 5, 6 MHC managers

January 9, 10 MHC managers

January 11, 12 Production Services

January 18, 19 Klemtu area

January 19, 20 Production Services

January 25, 26 Klemtu area

January 30, 31 Quatsino area

February 1, 2 Klemtu area

February 6, 7 Quatsino area

Salmon are cold blooded so they don’t waste energy keeping warm.

Salmon have an air bladder that keeps them neutrally buoyant in water, so they don’t have to fight gravity like land animals.

Because salmon don’t fight gravity, they don’t need to waste energy building large bones to support their weight.

All of this means they need less food to grow, so we get more fish using less resources.

Find out more at BCSALMONFACTS.ca