Orange Shirt Day Reconciliation: Restoring trading partnerships: CEO

In order to rebuild economic ties with Indigenous communities, Canada needs to re-establish its original trading partnerships that existed before confederation, according to one Indigenous CEO.

David Carrière-Acco, an assistant professor of Indigenous Business Management at McGill University said economic reconciliation is `basically putting things back in the right order` to when Canada was forming as a nation, and its trading relationship with Indigenous communities was a nation-to-nation one.

“It’s good for Canada, because when Indigenous companies do well and Indigenous communities do well, the surrounding communities do well,” said Carrière-Acco in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday, which is also the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

Carrière-Acco emphasized the importance of re-establishing the Indigenous people’s ‘license to operate,’ which was stripped away when the Indian Act was enacted in 1876.

He said restoring those permits will allow Indigenous communities to do business sustainably and equitably with Canadian corporations and in order for Canada to successfully engage in economic activities, Canadians must understand Indigenous partnerships.

“Canadians need to understand that more, especially if they want to mine or participate in the Canadian economy, as we move the supply chain from east to west, looking at Europe and Asia,” said Carrière-Acco.

Business setback for Indigenous communities

Carrière-Acco is a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation and co-founder of Acosys, an Indigenous owned business consulting company.

He said while he is teaching Indigenous business management in schools now, and has seen more Indigenous students studying business in the last two decades, Indigenous business knowledge was lost when children were forced into residential schools.

“It would be things like trades or arts and crafts and basically losing a language as well. So it was designed to just basically give a poor standard of education for Indigenous people,” said Carrière-Acco.

Supporting economic reconciliation

Carrière-Acco said he is seeing a lot of businesses develop policies that are supporting Indigenous entrepreneurship, through suppliers coming into the supply chain.

He gave an example from 2021 where Premium Brands partnered with Mi’kmaq First Nations communities in Nova Scotia to acquire Clearwater Seafoods for a 50 per cent stake in the company.

The deal was worth $1 billion and is said to be the largest single investment in the seafood industry in Canada by an Indigenous group.

“This is really changing the fabric of Indigenous people in Nova Scotia,“ said Carrière-Acco.

“It’s all happening in Indigenous communities. Indigenous communities aren’t traditional territory, or what they call `comprehensive land claims.“ So the fabric is changing quite a bit for the better.“

He says businesses can support economic reconciliation through incorporating cultural awareness training, changing hiring policies, increasing Indigenous procurement and creating more partnerships with Indigenous businesses.

Carrière-Acco is also calling for government policies that promote Indigenous economic participation to make Indigenous companies visible and create economic benefits for everyone involved.