The Keystone Fund is a separate $200 million, five-year flexible investment to transition up to 78 former marine fish farm sites to blue economy uses where site conditions permit, and to rebuild the wild salmon economy alongside the industrial transition. This includes repurposing site infrastructure for off-bottom shellfish culture and seaweed cultivation; First Nations Guardians programs; wild salmon restoration and habitat enhancement; salmon monitoring and applied science; workforce retraining and credentialing for land-based aquaculture operations; and Indigenous-led community economic development.

The capital structure for the Keystone Fund is different from Salmon Canada. While the government provides the anchor funding, the downstream capital stack will include philanthropic capital, community investment, Indigenous capital, and in-kind contributions. Not every dollar here is an investment dollar, some of this work is inherently grant-funded, and the fund is designed to fill gaps that banks, private capital, and infrastructure finance do not cover. The value of enabling First Nations to feed their communities and steward their territories is real even when it is not captured in a simple GDP number