A new report says boosting economic relations with Indigenous partners and incorporating their world views in business decision-making can help position Canada for a more resilient economic future.<\/p>\n
The report, published Wednesday by Deloitte\u2019s Future of Canada Centre, explores how sovereign Indigenous economic partnerships are among Canada\u2019s most underleveraged growth opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Canada grapples and comes to terms with a very challenging economic and global restructuring, Indigenous peoples being included in economic growth and new projects is going to be part of the solution and not an additional cost,\u201d said Dean Janvier, a partner at Deloitte Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, it will be a net benefit to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report incorporates interviews with 12 nationally recognized Indigenous business leaders. Its findings are also based on research conducted with the aid of three leading Indigenous-owned business entities that have experience in joint collaborations: Athabasca Indigenous Investments, Glooscap Ventures and Manitoba M\u00e9tis Federation.<\/p>\n
It said Indigenous peoples are playing an increasing role in the national economy, with Indigenous gross domestic income growing from $37.6 billion to $63.7 billion between 2013 and 2023. Janvier said Indigenous communities are playing a prominent part in some of Canada\u2019s most important sectors, including natural resource-based industries such as fishing, forestry, mining, and oil and gas.<\/p>\n
He said companies in those industries are also engaging more with First Nations across the country before projects get off the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s now, I think, becoming more common that companies are figuring out what their shared interests are and developing more of a relationship-based approach to getting approvals, which leads to lower costs and increased productivity and profit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts with respect. Showing up, listening, and taking time to establish that familiarity \u2026 that will become the basis of trust in the relationship going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the report urges policymakers and corporate leaders to help build on that momentum, it said barriers remain that hinder Indigenous-led growth.<\/p>\n
Those include \u201cresistance to change,\u201d said Janvier, who also highlighted disadvantages that some Indigenous communities face when it comes to participation in the economy, such as geographic isolation.<\/p>\n
Closing such gaps would nearly double the Indigenous economy\u2019s scale, the report added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a pocket of Canadian society that doesn\u2019t appreciate change and that would prefer if things went back to the way things used to be,\u201d said Janvier, a Denesuline member of the Cold Lake First Nations in northeastern Alberta.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see that coming out in terms of how some companies would prefer if the province or the federal government just ignored the rights or the Indigenous interest and went back to the \u201980s when they would just hand out these permits and then tell them, \u2018OK, now you go sit down with the Indigenous groups and negotiate nice agreements with them.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The report said more needs to be done to advance economic reconciliation. It points to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada\u2019s 94 calls to action, one of which urges businesses and government to apply lessons learned and avoid repeating past missteps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity now rests with implementation: embedding Indigenous partnership, consent, and equity participation into core economic strategies,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
That starts with understanding the Indigenous community\u2019s history to help explain distrust, while also bridging Indigenous world views into decision-making, which the report argues \u201ccan be a strategic international advantage for Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a time when Canada is reshaping its global trade relationships and focusing on \u201cnation-building projects,\u201d Janvier said the participation of Indigenous communities can be an asset.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen \u2026 Canada starts asking itself, \u2018What are some of our advantages in accessing new trade relationships, in increasing access to foreign markets?\u2019 Well, guess what? Indigenous peoples have international relationships that have been in place for a very long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can use these relationships with other Indigenous groups in other countries that Canada wants to do business with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report says boosting economic relations with Indigenous partners and incorporating their world views in business decision-making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[525,17,4613,29644,29480,29645,401],"class_list":["post-72765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-canadian-economy","tag-deloitte","tag-economic-indicators","tag-indigenous-partnership","tag-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}