For Immediate Release

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Campbell River, May 4, 2021 - Klahoose First Nation’s Economic Development Corporation, Qathen Xwegus manager Corporation (QXMC), continues its expansion with the launch of a new water-taxi business.

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QXMC is the business arm of the Klahoose First Nation, located on Cortes Island, B.C. Canada. The corporation has activities in different industries such as forestry, aquaculture, tourism and now transportation. For the past 2 years, QXMC’s management has set a new economic vision with significant investments in emergent opportunities.

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As per Bruno Pereira, CEO of QXMC, operating their own water-taxi was the logical thing to do “It made no doubt in my mind that we needed to contemplate the idea of running our own operation. Our companies spend important amounts of water-taxi services every year and claiming ownership of the operation would not only allow us to keep thee budgets internally and empower us with more flexibility, control and capacity building for future generations.”

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“As Chief of Klahoose and Chairman of the Board, I couldn’t be more prouder to own this new vessel and operate this new business. It is exciting to see our team accomplishing so much and establishing strategic and solid foundations for the future generations of the Klahoose Nation.” Says Chief Kevin Peacey.

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To help them with his new endeavour, QXMC partnered with BRIX Marine in Port Angeles for the build of their new vessel. “The quality of their work and professionalism of their team are second to none and ultimately made it easy for us to decide.’ said Pereira.

Pereira also mentioned the support they received from Tale’awtxw Aboriginal Capital Corporation (TACC).   “Dan Samuel and TACC played a critical role in this project. They supported us from the beginning and ended up financing the entire project with portion of the loan being forgivable.”

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For more information on Klahoose Water-Taxi, please contact Operations Manager Paul Muskee at paul@qxmc.org.