 Starting all attendees are in listen-only mode. Good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us today for our webinar on economic reconciliation. My name is Susan Lowe. I'm with the Design, Coordination and Outreach branch of the Ministry of Job Street Technology. I'm your technical support and moderator for our session today. I am located in Victoria in the beautiful traditional territories of the Lake London people, namely the Songhees and Yosukwimol First Nations. Before we get started there's two ways to connect to the audio for this webinar. So if you have a headset or microphone and speakers on your computer you can choose the computer audio which is the default when you log in. If you're concerned about your bandwidth or you don't have computer audio you can select phone call instead and it'll show you dial-in information and an access code for the webinar and a pin which is unique to you and that unique pin lets me mute or unmute your line if you are wanting to speak during the webinar. The GoToWebinar platform has a few different features which I'll just go through quickly. The orange arrow lets you hide that control panel at the side of your screen or unhide it. It tends to hide itself automatically if you're not using it after a while. You can go full screen by clicking on the blue square and the raise hands button lets you show me that you have a question to ask or you'd like to speak. We are going to try to use raise hands on this webinar. It will be my first time managing with raise hands as a feature so please bear with me and we'll try to get to everybody during the discussions. There's also the enter a question for staff and so if you'd like to ask a question or share a comment that you want me to share on the webinar without divulging who you are then you can type it in there. I can see who you are but I could ask your question without saying your name if you're more comfortable with that. So today's objectives on the webinar if you listen well and you participate here are the learning outcomes that you're going to achieve today. You'll be able to express some of the underlying principles of economic reconciliation, describe examples of economic reconciliation in action from various BC communities and articulate actions you can take to decrease barriers and increase economic reconciliation momentum. So without further ado I am going to introduce Paul Assert and I will actually let him introduce himself because that is so much more welcoming than me reading a bio and Paul can tell you the story from the source. Paul. Yay thanks Susan. Hello everyone. I'm assuming you can all see me so I'm going to wave at you all from my comfortable home here in Laquangen territory. I see there's a few people on the list that I know so I wanted to give a few shout outs to Francis, Mr. Francis Bracalma and Jessica Pan and Mrs. Tanya Claremont so far so just a special shout out to some of the wonderful people on the call here that I know and thank you everyone for joining us today. So during the webinar I'm going to share a few reflections for about 10 minutes or so on each of three topics and then open the space for some questions and dialogue and as Susan said we'll do our best to manage the technology here so it helps us communicate as best as we can and so the three aspects of economic reconciliation that I'll speak to some of what Susan mentioned is the strategies to decrease barriers and increase momentum towards economic reconciliation some of the underlying principles of economic reconciliation and specific examples of reconciliation in action. So to get us warmed up I'll share a little bit about myself and how I guess how I show up in the reconciliation space and more specifically in the economic reconciliation space and to do that I wanted to start in my own Indigenous language which is Carrier which is sort of Prince George South and West. So Hadi, Paul Lissert, Saddi, Mark Lissert, Spa, Marilyn Lissert, Slu, Nassal Deah, Hatsian, Sophie Keratroalu, I'm so happy to be here today, I just wanted to tell you a little bit who I am. My name is Paul Lissert, my traditional name is Kilum Giloch, my mom and dad is Mark and Marilyn Lissert and my grandparents from our traditional territory was Nassal Deah and Sophie Kedlau. I'm a caribou clan member and I'm a mixed blood carrier man and I'm a second generation residential school survivor and my late wife, the mother of my two daughters, attended the Le Jack residential school which was west of Prince George and that school closed in 1984. So just in terms of my sort of related experience at a government level I just wanted to position myself in the conversation as well as it relates to some of the context that we'll be talking about. So I recently completed a four-year term as the co-chair for the board of directors for an organization called Reconciliation Canada and I shared that co-chair role with Sean Adlio who was formerly the national chief. During our time over the last four years with Reconciliation Canada economic reconciliation was a significant focus for the organization and we spent a fair amount of time developing specific training modules to help facilitate the process of economic reconciliation for individuals, companies and organizations. I also just completed a term of six years as the vice-chair for the board of directors for the Vancouver Foundation which has just over $1 billion in their endowment and they grant roughly $50 million a year to organizations both in Metro Vancouver and across the province and that's also an organization that is on a reconciliation learning journey and trying to chart a pathway towards economic reconciliation through its own capacity as an institution and more broadly through the philanthropic sector. You can see there's a couple of folks here from Friendship Centre so I just wanted to comment briefly on my role with the Friendship Centre movement so for a period of 20 years I was the provincial executive director for the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres with our office in Victoria here and that was from 1996 to 2016. During that time we developed a five by five Aboriginal job strategy which was designed to get 5,000 Aboriginal people in BC working within five years so to transition 5,000 Indigenous people into the workforce over a period of five years. Since retiring from the BC Association in 2016 I've been leading two organizations the Moosehide Campaign which is working to end violence against women and children and that's this little patch of Moosehide here and so we've been partnering with the province of British Columbia municipal governments companies and so on to to advance that aspect of reconciliation and I am also a managing partner with a firm called Raven Capital Partners. So Raven Capital is an Indigenous financial intermediary that is facilitating the flow of capital to Indigenous social entrepreneurs and unlocking new sources of capital for Indigenous entrepreneurs who often do not qualify for and or are not comfortable with accessing traditional sources of capital and we are also facilitating renewable energy capital projects in First Nations communities and I'll talk a little bit about that as one of the examples but I just wanted to be crystal clear that I am not an expert on economic reconciliation and I'm positive that many of you on this call know much more than I do about what is currently working really well in this province and all the incredible innovations that are happening in that space. So I'll talk about what I do know about economic reconciliation but first I wanted to get Susan to just advance to the next slide and I see from the attendees list that folks are participating from various sort of sectors and contexts around the province and so you know I don't want to assume that everybody knows all of the 94 TRC calls to action and or that you've memorized them and but I just wanted to say this about the TRC calls some look we had you know seven years of testimony and research and understanding about the intergenerational effects of residential schools and colonization in Canada and 6,700 residential school survivors shared their truth and in a way that was recorded and often in front of witnesses and for many of our people including a number of members of my own family you know folks told their story about what happened to them when they're little for the very first time in a very painful way at an advanced age in their life and so it is incumbent on us to pay very serious attention to the roadmap that was generated and that is rooted in the wisdom and the teachings and the learnings and the trauma that flowed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and so this is what you see now is call number 57 we call upon the federal provincial territory and municipal governments to provide education to public servants on the history of Aboriginal peoples including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, treaties and Aboriginal Rights, Indigenous Law and Aboriginal Crown Relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism. So I just wanted to make sure that and and there's one more that that we'll speak to now so that was call 57 this is TRC call to action 92 and this is the the call that's specific to the business community we call upon the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a reconciliation framework and to apply its principles norms and standards to corporate policy and core operational activities involving Indigenous Peoples and their lands and resources this would include but not be limited to the following commit to meaningful consultation, building respectful relationships and obtaining the free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples before proceeding with economic development projects ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training and education opportunities in the corporate sector and that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects. And provide education for management and staff on the history of Aboriginal Peoples similar to call 57 including the history and legacy of residential schools, the UN DRIP, treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous Law and Aboriginal Crown Relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism. So those are the two calls that are part of the 94 TRC calls to action and very relevant to this discussion in terms of you know the question is how do we find a roadmap for economic reconciliation and in fact it's not something that we need to recreate. There are certainly guidelines that have been established and billions and billions of dollars and you know tens of thousands of hours and thousands of individuals that have participated and contributed to some very specific calls to action. So I wanted to shift and just sort of share a little bit about some of the things that I've come to understand about economic reconciliation and the first is that we cannot reverse hundreds of years of unequal relationships overnight. That the history of broken treaties, territorial dispossession, Indian reservations and residential schools is going to take time, it's going to take time to overcome those things and so the journey of economic reconciliation is exactly that. It will be a journey more than a destination and in an environment, in an economic environment that tends to be transactional, this may be a new skill set that is necessary to build some of the things that we're looking for together, shared prosperity, economic certainty, you know progress around viable economic projects etc and we'll need to do it together if we're going to have a better future than the past that we've had. But you know I also know that we've inherited a legacy of very specific barriers to economic reconciliation that we are going to need to surface and then remove. And so you know it raises my first question for each of you on the call and I think it's perhaps the most difficult and important takeaway from this webinar at least I hope it is. And the question is this, you know how are you a barrier to economic reconciliation? How are each of you on this call a barrier to economic reconciliation? How is what you think, how you act, the assumptions you carry and even the things that you don't know creating barriers to economic reconciliation and what can you do to remove those barriers? So I'm going to give you a minute to think about that and then I'm going to ask for some of you to share your thoughts and I'll signal to Susan to see if we can't find a way to facilitate just a little bit of that process here. And look the question applies to everyone on the call. So we have Indigenous and non-Indigenous people on this call and if you think about it in the context of self-government often you know it's one of the terms that people have heard for a long time and are not really clear about what it means and my interpretation of self-government is in the literal sense in that it's really about our ability to govern ourselves as individuals and if it wasn't for people everything would be just great but it turns out that as human beings you know we have an incredible opportunity and jurisdiction to condition and modify our own behavior towards shared prosperity, towards a shared outcome and in fact we are probably the most significant variables in the space every single one of us and so if we're going to move towards shared economic prosperity it's really about in large part our ability to remove ourselves as barriers or to surface within ourselves the barriers in the way that we think act and some of the beliefs that we hold and so I just wanted to turn that over to the to the group and I don't know how to do that so I'm going to ask Susan to We'll get it started. There was a question that came up and maybe that can help people generate some of their own ideas and that was what do we mean when we say economic reconciliation? Is there a nutshell explanation of the term? Is it different for everybody? Is it contextual? Yeah I'll get there but I want to keep the question open because in this transactional environment our tendency is to want to go to the solution and really the process of economic reconciliation is more of a journey than a destination point and so the question is a bit tricky itself in that and it's a learning opportunity in and of itself because it sometimes I think betrays for all of us our desire to either expedite or understand in concrete terms what our desired future state is or what the destination point is and in fact the pathway of economic reconciliation is really about the shared journey and that is really what pulls folks into the complexity of the space that that we all run up against on a pretty consistent basis and make mistakes that cost us money and time it cost us economic opportunity because we're we may in fact be looking for the wrong thing or we may be making an effort to circumvent a learning journey within ourselves and between each other that is in fact going to help us to realize economic opportunities and of course some of those core principles associated to economic reconciliation related to economic opportunity is the shared value space and so we were having that conversation earlier that that indigenous people often in indigenous nations and tribes often have a very holistic understanding of economic development opportunities and and are often looking for triple bottom line projects and that things that move the further you move away from a triple bottom line opportunity and and where there is increased profit and decreased safety for the environment or or no collective benefit for indigenous people that starts to move further away from the lens of economic reconciliation and so as it relates to specific economic opportunities you know in the broader umbrella it's a very large umbrella and so so all of that to say I want to pull folks away from the the the crystallized definition and more towards the opportunity to understand the journey the process of the journey cool um we have one comment and it's uh from an indigenous person who says I'm accustomed to being thankful for whatever is offered instead of standing out for what is deserved I'm going to I'm going to throw mine here because I know that for some people being on a webinar where they know uh this is being recorded and it might feel uncomfortable for some people to share I'm just going to throw in a risk and share uh what I've reflected on and uh with where I think I'm a barrier and there's two things actually one uh my my education in this province taught me more about the deficiencies of indigenous people and and what they had suffered then about what they are capable of uh so my orientation coming into this field of work is I'm going to just say it's it it's a paternalistic orientation which is that everything I've ever heard is about the challenges faced instead of uh the opportunities of doing economic work in a different way uh and my other barrier is I like to create solutions so I want to be like oh let's get some quick wins let's get some some things on the ground let's do some things instead of spending the time to uh to go slowly and reflect on this is a shared journey we've got generations we've had generations so those are the two things that um I think have to be on my mind as I go forward beautiful beautiful thanks Susan yeah um it's interesting so so JP Gladu is is the many of you will know him is the um the president and CEO for the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business and so it's a collective of 500 uh companies and about 75 80 percent of them are indigenous owned um companies and they just completed a three-year study in this space to sort of unpack the economic potential uh the the impact on Canada's economy of of um if we do the barrier removal and unleash the economic potential of indigenous communities um and they have um and including a group of economists working with them through this study have pegged it at about 27 billion dollars a year um in Canada uh of um of if we were producing at the same level as in terms of our communities the capacity of our communities as other Canadians and that is just under two percent of Canada's GDP GDP about 1.7 percent of Canada's GDP um which in the broad context is um a material even in the context of British Columbia if you just extrapolate that to to our provincial context uh to present a GDP um in in a provincial context is a significant is a significant variable and so um so the value proposition um for shifting our lens shifting that deficit lens um is it it can be entirely selfish in in the broader context of of our shared economic prosperity um and it's not limited it's not limited to those things i'll give you a few other examples and i and i do want to see if we can get one or two more people we've got one person yeah we've got one more person um can i share that i'll go with that okay so when it comes to being a barrier i think we often i'm going to do the air quotes go to what we know so in this context we go to the traditional partners so the business organizations companies et cetera that we work with perhaps unintentionally without culturally always encompassing or including our personations in the discussions and the partnerships so it's the go to what you know mentality sure sure awesome thank you thank you so much for that one um it's absolutely right and look if if everything that we've been doing up until this point is working or was working well then we would not be on this call and we would not be needing to have this conversation okay so there let's let's agree also that um some of what we've been doing in the context of economic reconciliation and economic prosperity shared economic prosperity and a better future than the past that we've had as indigenous and non-indigenous canadiens together not everything has been working well and so you know the the nature of the opportunity is for us to unpack that and disentangle what it what you know go to what you know most of that has not been working for indigenous people and i would suggest that the status quo is unacceptable for all of us the status quo of the quality of life the standard of living education outcomes health outcomes violence against women those outcomes that are very often um uh uh related to poverty and economic marginalization that status quo i think i hope that we can agree is um unacceptable so so to go to go back to the question um how are things that you don't know currently creating barriers to economic reconciliation that might seem like an odd question and so i want to i want to give an example of what that might mean and and so take the indian act i want to take the indian act as an example so so as as i'm sure most people on the call here know we we literally have a law in canada that only applies to indians we're one of the very few jurisdictions on the planet that has segregation um still as as a practice here in 2018 we have segregation in canada we have statutory segregation um and we have a law for indians and then all the other laws for all of the rest of canadiens yeah and i can tell you definitively um that the indian act is historically the number one driver of economic marginalization for first nations meti and inuit people in canada so if we're going to have like air quotes again economic reconciliation um does it not make sense that we gain at least some understanding of the main reason why we need it in the first place and also is not prudent to understand what some of the specific barriers are that we're trying to address now that's not to suggest that the folks on this call and or we as canadians outside of the federal parliament have the ability to change statutes but it does suggest that to um to dance blindly with a set of barriers that we're trying to remove is contrary to the effectiveness and efficiency that is the foundation of good business right so so there there are there are variables in the space of barriers that are we are blind to um when we're trying to remove barriers and increase momentum around reconciliation so to reframe the question is it possible that your lack of knowledge of legislation that negatively affects the economic well-being of indigenous people is a barrier in and of itself to economic reconciliation and if so what can you do to remove that barrier and i would suggest that this question also applies equally to indigenous and non-indigenous people i talked to indigenous people all all over the country and i would suggest that somewhere in the range of five percent of our people um have a detailed understanding of what's in the indian act and in fact it's a it's a statute that has had the most profound effect on our lives it's the most influential thing in the country um that has affected our economic and and our broad more general well-being and i would suggest that the percentage of non-indigenous canadians is much lower much lower that that understands what's in the indian act yeah and it's interesting um talking with uh i'm going to try to not talk about other people's stories i'll talk about my story but when i discuss uh economic development with people i know who are who worked in the uh i think the world of financial capital let's say and i i mentioned the indian act uh has real you know has impacts on how investment capital can be used or how land ownership is recognized and how uh personations can can use the land that they have to generate capital through mortgages and stuff like that but there are restrictions on that and and i've talked to some people who are not aware of those restrictions so when we move into a space of trying to partner but we do not understand the operating context for the people we're trying to partner with um we set up unnecessary barriers it's it's like not noticing that somebody has their you know has their leg bleeding and and just expecting them to run a race with you it's like oh yeah it would be nice if i noticed that uh you have some things that are holding you back we've got another comment from one of our attendees which is are they pertinent to this you know not knowing um i'm going to read it to you my barriers are fear and ignorance i do not know what changes will result from the reconciliation process what might the future of canadian institutions look like after reconciliation i hear the term indigenization of canadian culture and institutions uh incorporation of indigenous laws and values and i don't know what changes this will bring this uncertainty causes me to wonder if there might be conflicts enforcements of changes that are not yet understood etc how do i learn indigenous history and bias stem from stories that are owned by indigenous peoples and rightfully protected vigorously by them uh from misappropriation by others wow that's fantastic thank you thank you to the person so much uh for to the person that shared that question um and so uh it's it's exactly um in in an incredible uh level of precision the the point that i'm trying to get at which is um that so much of the journey of towards economic reconciliation or the journey of economic reconciliation is about learning it's about unlearning um the intergenerational narratives that have been fed to us um by a colonizing society um and and it's part of the lens of oppression if you look all over the world colonizing societies feed themselves a narrative of a deficit lens of the people that they're oppressing it's it's massively ironic and and um and so it's really is about learning and one fabulous opportunity to learn um is the um indigenous cultural competency training uh that's offered by the provincial health services authority the phsa it has a little bit of uh health slant on it but it's it's um it's wonderful there's over 35 000 people many in the provincial public service um that have taken that training it's very inexpensive it's 250 dollars um and if they say it's eight hours but it takes about 10 hours and for people who want to um you know make some semblance of a commitment to your learning journey around reconciliation and unpacking some of those learnings uh it's powerful it has little exercises that you can do it has videos with subject matter experts on a range of indigenous engagement uh capacities um and um and um yeah so so that's one good example um and i just wanted to uh just give give one other example in the context of how we think and act um and and in part of your own journey towards economic reconciliation and and this is also speaks to the last question um so uh so there's an there's an old narrative in this country um that the government takes care of the natives and i'm going to use like really um plain plain folk language here that the government take care of the natives that our tax dollars are already being wasted on overly generous government programs that provide a lot of free things for first nations and for indigenous peoples there is a there is a dominant narrative particularly in the older generation of this country um where that is really the general understanding and and it's and sometimes it goes as far as that just it goes as far as that um that the government takes care of the natives and um that our tax dollars are already being wasted um and so so you know my my invitation is to for yourself to see if that's what you think and i'm not suggesting that that you know folks on this call think that but but is that what you think or is is it what people you know think and and i and i would suggest it presents a really important opportunity in the business community to practice barrier removal towards an economic reconciliation because that narrative is a barrier that narrative is a fundamental barrier to economic reconciliation and the way to remove that barrier okay um is to promote a new narrative promote a narrative that's much more rooted in truth to the point that you raised earlier susan um that first nations uh and indigenous people are and always have been since the early days of contact in this country an incredible source of innovation that the innovations that this country is founded on you can read uh um john ralston's all a fair country um is is a great um it's a great read in in unpacking so many of the innovations that this country is it was rooted in um are indigenous innovations john ralston's all a fair country um so part of that part of the new narrative which is rooted in truth um is that first nations and indigenous people are an incredible source of innovation always have been and are today um to that we are necessary partners in building economic certainty in the province of british columbia this is a new narrative from from you know lazy and everything's free to uh necessary partners in building economic certainty in this province okay the third is that we are entrepreneurial in every sense indigenous culture um has always had an incredible foundation in commerce um and entrepreneurship um and that as indigenous people we deserve to have the same standard of living as every other canadian um and so and so there is uh there is a new narrative that is emerging particularly amongst younger people in this country and and how we how we think and how we act um in the journey of economic towards economic reconciliation is in very large part about changing the way that those narratives are are deployed in this country and you can use if you work for government or municipal government to company if you work for your municipality or regional district if you work for a foundation a friendship center um you can use your tools you can use your newsletters you can use your website you can use your emails you can put it as a header on the bottom of your email there are so many community your social media there are so many ways that we can amplify amplify a new narrative in this country and remove the barrier of the negative assumptions that deficit lens toward indigenous people um and and look i'm going to leave that that point for now um uh you know um how are you a barrier to economic reconciliation what can you do to remove those barriers um but it's an interesting question for your co-workers and bosses and employees as you start to um build your economic reconciliation action plan okay it's a it's a really important question and it's it's tough because it causes folks to look in the mirror um instead of looking down on our people so yeah before we go i've got two things um great an additional comment that was brought forward um re question two there's a huge educational piece and public awareness piece missing we do not often or regularly hear about the successes that are making significant changes that provide for increased understanding and that provide the space for conceptualizing the value and the possibilities and then someone wanted to know the name of that course from the Provincial Health Services Authority and uh if you if you'll say it i'll try to put it in the chat window that goes out to everybody here yeah it's it's sannyas i think it's s a n y a s but it's it's indigenous cultural competency offered by the Provincial Health Services Authority p h s and is it an online course online course yeah okay great yeah it's going okay all right okay so uh yeah so just uh just a few ideas in terms of increasing momentum uh towards economic reconciliation uh i want to offer a few concrete ideas uh the first um conduct policy research and develop an economic reconciliation policy framework for your organization or your unit these these journeys that we're on are really important but it's critical that we anchor them uh in policy policy lives past your time in the job that you're in um and this is a long-term journey so uh policy development is really critical related to economic reconciliation uh and it's this is something that does not have to be super long and complicated but it is important that part of that process is that it become mandated by your board through a motion or by your senior decision maker if you're in government so find opportunities to give expression to economic reconciliation policy frameworks in your workplace second is set targets for hiring indigenous people ask yourself if the place that you work has targets and there are obviously two schools of thought in what is seemed to be you know disadvantageous for non-indigenous people we are well established in the human rights context and in the in the supreme court context that this is a good idea if you report to an elected body then set targets for indigenous board members hold yourself accountable to achieving your targets for indigenous reconciliation by including it in your audit um i was uh partnered with uh band city credit union it's one of the corporations in this province that has um uh had their auditor audit their reconciliation targets they set reconciliation targets as a company each year um and then their auditor engages surveys with their employees um and with their partners and provides them with a scorecard a to a great a grade to failing grade um on meeting their targets that they set for economic reconciliation as a company um and so uh my reference to in this as that as an example of economic reconciliation in practice um is to look at their annual report band city credit union annual report this year um which lists some of the targets that they've set for economic reconciliation as a good example in the corporate sense um include a component on reconciliation uh in your orientation and training process for new employees make it mandatory so the last question was um there are very few sources of um uh information about indigenous history indigenous peoples something to replace the old broken narrative that is the deficit lens um and one of the things that happens in government at all levels um and and in corporations is turnover um so you have a constant flow of people into different positions and one of the um in my opinion one of the most powerful opportunities to build that new narrative um and and and have a base of understanding with which to engage in successful economic development with indigenous people is through orientation and training for new employees um that's mandatory um learn about and follow indigenous protocols um simple things like acknowledging the traditional territory at the beginning of meetings whether you're the chairperson or just the participant um something that's simple you see it happening more and more um and and I add to that I would suggest learning five words from the local indigenous language where you live um and just that journey alone is a very powerful one for individuals it's uncomfortable and that's what we want to do we want to get out of our comfort zones because our comfort zones are reinforcing the position that we're in and use use those words respectfully when you introduce yourself at the beginning of meeting put up a sign in the front of your office that acknowledges the traditional indigenous territory you are on um this is becoming common and and but it's it's simple and powerful when meeting with an indigenous elder community leader bring a small gift uh small meaningful gift is a sign of respect and it says you are there in a good way um support your staff to volunteer for indigenous nonprofit organizations or you yourself um uh seek an opportunity to volunteer for indigenous uh nonprofit organizations if you or your organization have an asset base consider it through a lens of reconciliation can you leverage your assets for shared benefit with indigenous people uh if you have an asset base that has taken a long time to um to grow uh ask yourself if all of the assets in your asset base have been acquired ethically and uh this is a challenge particularly in the philanthropic sector uh where you have large endowments that have grown over time in the health sector for health foundations and hospital foundations and and so on um how is it that you have acquired these assets um and is there an opportunity to repatriate some of those assets to indigenous communities um uh and it's a very challenging question but it's it's one that I wanted to put to you to think about um in your context set small procurement targets to purchase goods and services from indigenous social enterprise this is this is a pure economic reconciliation action in practice okay set procurement targets to purchase goods and services from indigenous social enterprises my challenge is the two by two set yourself a two percent procurement target within two years set a goal of two percent of all the goods and services that you and your organization purchase within two years if the business community and the government set a two percent indigenous procurement target and we achieved that within two years we would vastly outstrip the supply the capacity of indigenous communities to supply goods and services um and we would create an economic boom amongst indigenous entrepreneurs because the demand side would create um a massive market for the innovators in our communities that really don't have access to markets because of barriers like procurement policies that forget that our communities have goods and services um and young innovators um that are ready willing and able um and uh my reference uh for procurement targets is to visit by social and so it's led by a guy named david le page um and they've done a ton of work on supporting specific institutions who are looking to move in that direction so it's policy support and government support um and and um uh portfolios of indigenous um uh and social enterprises that have goods and services that might be aligned with your needs i just want to mention as a as a as a pitch for the uh indigenous business investment council they maintain indigenous business listings so if you go to bcibic.ca you can access those business listings and just get a sense of what is on offer and that is pretty much straight that's that's economics 101 that is supply and demand folks yep yep so and so you know some of some of the opportunities are that simple and immediate in front of us and but so many of them are relational right and so you know that the the the trc good 94 calls to action is really about a reconciliation journey um and it you know it's it's a it's a pathway it's a roadmap it's a bumpy road but it's a roadmap um and so um uh and so and in order to be able to help that process uh i would suggest there's another training um that you can take uh and it's provided by uh reconciliation canada and i as i mentioned earlier i had the privilege of of being the co-chair for the last four years for reconciliation canada um and um and it was of course founded by by uh chief dr robert joseph who's uh just recently received the order of canada um and and uh you and your organization and or your family can participate in training provided by reconciliation canada that is specific to the economic space um that's facilitative uh if it is something that um where you're looking for a facilitative organization to help um you in your process of journey towards economic reconciliation and you want to make a small investment um for to pay for uh that service um then reconciliation canada and you can look at them up it's just reconciliation canada at ca great i just want to mention also on the procurement part uh we've got a comment that came in being part of abroad aboriginal business match uh now advanced business match it's another opportunity that municipalities and companies etc can participate in um so there's aboriginal business match in various parts of the province throughout the year um and throughout bc so that is an opportunity to advance the procurement absolutely no aboriginal business actually yeah perfect i can't believe i forgot to to mention aboriginal business thank you for the the comment um uh and last and and i i can't participate in any meeting or any conversation without um inviting folks to join the moosei campaign um you know the the reconciliation and umbrella is broad um and um we will never be we will never achieve reconciliation and or economic reconciliation if the well-being of indigenous women and children is not at the center of our work towards shared prosperity the effect of uh poverty um uh large-scale resource extraction um the burden is borne by indigenous women um and our territories and and of course um and and of course indigenous children and you look at some of the outcomes that is the legacy of residential schools colonization and the indian act um in the form of current child welfare policies and i'm not trying to pull the conversation into the social space i'm suggesting that these are you look through the one keyhole of reconciliation and you'll see our economy but you'll also see the echo of the residential schools with the withdrawal of our children from our families and the marginalization and harm that's done to indigenous women um in this space and um their well-being uh needs to be at the center of um the work that we're undertaking moving forward towards economic reconciliation the moussaid campaign um is a very simple strategy of engaging men and boys um to wear a patch of moussaid uh to cause you to have conversations on a daily basis um and to you know help facilitate your own journey this space is also tends to be a little bit more male oriented and so there's lots of work that us as men in the economic reconciliation space can do in our own journey um to understand the way that we need to change our behavior and the way that we need to change the deficit lens that we have towards indigenous women and shift it towards love and respect um and if that was all we achieved um that would be a very powerful step in the right direction um and i can i can promise you that they're that they're very very uh closely in kin uh with each other um uh economic reconciliation the well-being of indigenous yeah i think it's the when we look at uh why we want to grow an economy why we want a healthy economy and it it is not just because we're keeping score by the numbers or by the dollars we're doing all of these things so that people here in british columbia can have a healthy life where they can thrive uh that is the goal that the economy is in service of so if we are neglecting the health of our communities and the people in our communities while chasing economic goals we're kind of missing the point yes 100 100 percent thanks susan yeah um and and so look i wanted to give uh some concrete examples of economic reconciliation actually talked a little bit about them um and um and uh you know this is this is where uh many of you will have much more knowledge than than i do uh about uh the brilliant things that are already happening in in every corner of this province and so i want to i want to um you know suggest that that a very important part of the learning opportunity uh in this space is really to uh watch and listen and find those sources that have been suggested here um about um you know the the innovations that are emerging now i think out of necessity and and and just out of the special time that we find ourselves in in this country that there's a we're in a social and cultural transformation uh and we are in a journey of reconciliation and it's happening uh in every sector including the economic uh development sector um so the first thing i'd like to focus on is the opportunity to mobilize uh private capital uh as and you sort of alluded to that uh susan in in in in new ways uh okay to to enable um triple bottom line uh results uh when working with uh indigenous people and uh first nations communities um and and i want to uh suggest that um uh you know this idea of of uh you know economic opportunities and economic development that achieves uh triple bottom line uh is a perfect example of um reconcile economic reconciliation if there was if you had to boil it down to a purely economic definition uh economic development that achieves uh triple bottom line uh results um in in and of itself uh is is very close but i would argue that economic reconciliation uh could be a quadruple bottom line that that in that economic development sphere um the idea that we measure um you know uh financial benefit social benefit environmental benefit and benefit in the reconciliation space as a fourth um bottom line as a fourth aspect of the bottom line because you can have uh a triple bottom line um uh you know economic opportunity um that has absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation with indigenous people and of course everybody talks about Great Bear Rainforest so i'm not going to talk about Great Bear Rainforest uh but if you don't know anything about Great Bear Rainforest um then check it out because it's the Silicon Valley of of quadruple bottom line results uh in in the economic reconciliation space um so i did want to give uh one example here and and uh you know it's really to address this issue that the the lack of access to capital is a crippling reality for many indigenous entrepreneurs um and First Nations communities and that's access to capital for everything some of that is statutory driven the lack of equitable funding for children in care the lack of equitable funding and i don't mean like special treatment i mean um the funding caps that have been on uh federal provincial transfers for things like schools for our elementary children that happen to go to school in our own communities who don't want to go or can't go um to an external school um the cap on funding for indigenous children and care that the cap on funding for post-secondary education and so on so um so there's there is that statutory driven lack of lack of access to capital there's a driver of course um that folks here will be familiar with around a lack of access to capital due to a lack of of collateral and and a lack of uh leverageable assets i.e on reserve generally you can't build equity in your home and or i mean there there are opportunities to now but um generally it's been a historical barrier to raising capital on reserve for the purposes of business is that folks cannot access the build and or access equity in their home and um you know there are solutions to to many of our existing challenges but we're struggling to access the financial resources to implement those solutions at scale and that also really applies to to many of our our individual entrepreneurs every good economy is based on small business this success of small business and and the indigenous small business community is is exploding and many of our entrepreneurs their extended family does not have the means to provide security for commercial debt and as individuals we have not inherited the capacity from our parents intergenerational wealth transfer is not an indigenous phenomenon it's a non-indigenous phenomenon and so for those of us whose parents went to residential schools you know they we are often not inheriting and or provided with the security that we need as entrepreneurs to be able to start and or scale a small business and so that lack of of collateral and the lack of extended family security is a very serious barrier and a very real limit in the flow of capital into the indigenous small business world so i i believe and and suggest that social finance offers one pathway to increase that flow of capital and so i mentioned i'm a managing partner with with raven capital partners and one of our own economic reconciliation projects is to facilitate geothermal or geo exchange installations in first nations communities and have the capital installation be funded by private investors and so there are new social financing tools and opportunities on on that part of the of the investment continuum that that i wanted to unpack and and one of them is is like sort of pay for performance contracts and in this context it's called an outcomes contract and so the project that we're undertaking is to have private investors pay the capital installation costs for 125 geothermal units to be installed on a per home basis in three different first nations communities and so why would private investors want to pay for capital installations in first nations communities so the role that raven capital partners is playing is as a as an indigenous financial intermediary to unlock private capital to prove to governments to prove to the federal and provincial governments that you know we can generate long-term savings and then to create social finance arrangements where federal and provincial governments and or municipal governments depending on what areas of jurisdiction you're dealing with then backstop and or guarantee those private invest investments based on projected savings and so in this instance with the 125 homes that we're making a geo exchange installations for let's say we're projecting a 50 reduction in kilowatt hour use of electricity in those homes for the purposes of heating and so the private investors paid the upfront costs in in and in this project it's five million dollars so small money and the federal government provides a guarantee against a very specific target in terms of our reduction in energy usage in those 125 homes we're in construction now in those three first nations communities and our proof in this outcomes contract is only 12 months and so you want to in this in in the case of renewable energy you really need one experience with each of these four seasons that that's relevant to energy consumption to have a sense about what your performance is going to be over the course of a year in whether or not you meet your energy reduction targets and these are fairly reliable targets that we've set based on similar installations in other first nations communities after 12 months in this model this the social finance model called outcomes contract after 12 months the federal government pays back those private investors plus five percent per year incentive payment or return on their investment um they it takes about 10 years for the federal government to have a return on their own capital investment i.e. to pay um or recover the capital costs um for the the cost of the installation the cost of the the um the capital that the geo exchange uh tech to be put in the ground for each of the homes it takes about 10 years for them to recover their their investment and then the life cycle of the equipment is 30 years and so amortized over 30 years the federal government will realize 20 years of of cost saving but never having had to put up a single dollar at the front end until until those savings are approved and so really they're just putting up a a guarantee against the private investment that is like a social impact bond but it's but it's a like more like a it's not a bond exactly it's an outcomes contract and and so the payment gets triggered after the first 12 months when all of those proofs are complete and you know everybody wants to understand um in a very accountable way risks um and and uh sort of empirical data as a really as as it relates to um to uh measures metrics the metrics associated with the project so we have a principal investigator from a university um that is providing third party validation of the installation cost the development cost the installation costs um the maintenance costs and the savings um and in that context it's really just a proof of concept so that we can get a broader backstop um and so our objective is sort of more in the 100 million dollar range so that we can start to raise real capital from investors who want to be part of the economic reconciliation space who want to have that quadruple bottom line where you have environmental benefit by reduce reducing our ghg footprint in those communities and reducing diesel consumption just in british columbia alone there are 80 diesel dependent communities not all of them indigenous so lots of small settlements non-indigenous settlements as well that are diesel dependent just in british columbia alone 80 and so very dirty source of energy so so having a positive environmental impact having an incredibly positive social impact and we're in the process now of measuring sort of variables around job creation and pride increased health outcomes in communities where where they're participating in these particular projects and of course fiscal outcomes in reducing the cost of energy increasing energy sovereignty in those first first nations communities and facilitating economic reconciliation by having a different relationship between government private investors indigenous communities and researchers and if you think about all the triggers that come into your mind about the history of all of those relationships finding opportunities for quadruple bottom line specific targeted projects that center indigenous people and indigenous voice and center indigenous culture as environmental stewards you know there there is there are a litany of opportunities in in aquaculture and in tech in ecotourism you know you don't have to look far to see the brilliance that's emerging in indigenous communities as it relates to those kind of opportunities so so i'll stop there and and see i hope that was helpful just to give you a sense about how all those things if you practice all of those you know those journeys of self-discovery you know you can enable yourself whether you're coming as a private investor or government as a regulator and or as an indigenous person come into that space shed some of the assumptions that we have about each other and and embrace the innovation opportunity there's nothing that can stop us i think what i like about the example you provided actually is it is involving private capital but as well as involving the federal government in a different way in the relationship with the indigenous communities where these installations are going in this is a this is a partnering this is a we're all going to take this on together to create benefit rather than we're going to we're going to regulate we're going to restrict we're going to stop which isn't necessarily done with a a negative intention but the the history of the relationship has been so challenging that to create a project that begins showing new pathways for that relationship as is more powerful than just geothermal energy agreed yeah yeah cool um well we have a few more minutes in the webinar and people haven't asked any questions on this i think they're all thinking really really hard which is a good thing if anyone wants to pop any questions into that question box before we go i'll go through some of my my final webinar announcements and then if anything comes up while i'm doing that that we can ask them but i promised to let everyone go at 115 and i'm sure people have their lunches in the microwave and they're just ready to hit the go button uh so um at first i just want to say thank you so much this has been fascinating and uh oh here we go we have some thank yous coming in how valuable the webinar was and thank you for uh the opportunity and joining us and uh yeah i'm gonna just talk about some of the next things coming up while i still have you we've got two webinars coming up uh june 19th we're doing the tech dev 101 we're looking at the innovation ecosystem model and there's the link to go to to register for that one uh and then uh the end of the month we'll be doing a showcase of some of our bc ideas success stories and these ones will focus on workforce development initiatives uh so some really interesting projects i'm still busy curating what those will be so uh you can register and it'll be a surprise what we talk about i'll be announcing it the next couple of days hopefully uh if you're not getting the invitations to our economic development series webinars this is the link to go to if you want to sign up to be on our invitation list a couple people who've signed up lately accidentally weren't getting the invites the technical problem has been identified and the solution is on the way um i'm going on a road trip again uh i'm going to the bc economic development association summit next week uh this is what you could do we're running the wave makers workshop which is uh it's kind of like speed dating for economic development resources and uh that's our workshop will be on the afternoon of june 12th so come and see us there you now know what i look like so come and say hi i won't know what you look like uh yeah we had one question come up here we go i knew if i just talked a bit that it would come up uh your triple bottom line example is well appreciated what opportunities do you see for new enterprises to be formed that's for you paul uh what opportunities do i see for new enterprise to be formed um so uh so i'll be a little bit shameless here um uh one of the um uh one of the services that that um i mean and look contact your aboriginal financial institution that the afis in this province are are fantastic and offer um good business development supports uh get ahold of susan and folks like uh megan at um at jtt um and megan wanuck um and uh you know they have excellent training opportunities um uh one of the uh supports that that raven capital partners provides um is uh training for um new indigenous entrepreneurs um and and we try to do two things one is and it's two day sessions so one is to to to surface indigenous entrepreneurs within a 200 mile radius and facilitate local networking uh between indigenous entrepreneurs both for shared learning um and mentorship but also to buy and sell your goods and services to each other um and then to provide uh training support and if you're alone ready to make capital available to you if you're looking to scale your business your small business and so um uh yeah so you can get ahold of of uh me if there if there you have an interest we have training sessions coming up on vancouver island and so um we can uh make that information available available to you as well great um and final question first of all congrats grand paul thank you and with the number of indigenous communities that are located in rural areas are you aware of any funding or investment opportunities that are specifically available for young indigenous entrepreneurs who are wanting to create business within their remote and rural communities you got like two minutes before this thing ends um uh revenue opportunities for young indigenous entrepreneurs in rural communities that are uh trying to start a business uh yeah yeah in those remote remote and rural opportunity communities yeah yeah investment opportunities yeah yeah so much you know it's really about thinking differently uh in the finance context and and so much uh um opportunity exists uh with individual indigenous governments who are innovating in that space to support their own local indigenous entrepreneurs and so i would start with your own indigenous government with a business plan and or support to develop a robust business plan to test your market assumptions and to uh and through the development of that business plan um you know seek sort of explore what your what your uh capital uh source opportunities are but but um but starting with of course you know your own community support uh in the development of a robust business plan it's really key yeah i'm just gonna throw in i'm aware of if you're on the coast there's coast funds which invests in uh indigenous entrepreneurs and has a lot on the coast funds i think it's coastfunds.ca has a lot of stories of uh indigenous businesses that they've supported with fairly significant amounts of capital and then uh for starting up businesses i can't say enough about the community futures offices uh and the resources that the people in those offices provide to entrepreneurs they they are are great coaches advisors and connectors so uh we don't have any more time so i'll just say please complete the feedback survey um i'm just having this sudden moment of i may have forgotten to set up the feedback survey on this webinar so it'll get sent to you in your email very soon if it hasn't been set up already uh if it if it doesn't pop up when you leave the webinar stay tuned and don't forget to to register for the next one um that's it i'm gonna say hi to Paul for joining us and um that's great conversation thank you and thank you everybody for taking your lunch hour just beg with us so i'm gonna end the webinar it'll it'll it's just it's all gonna shut down now it'll be very abrupt so uh thank you Susan everyone bye bye