BC Business
BCB_BigIdeas_250.jpg
An old friend of mine once joked: “What do you call a ‘rez entrepreneur?’” “I don’t know,” I replied, grinning. “Casino manager?” “No,” he said, laughing. “A drug dealer.”
Though cryptically humorous (perhaps even racist), the joke left me to reflect on the current state of aboriginal business. In the past, Indian reserves have been known mainly for their gas stations, billboards and casinos. Generally, people don’t associate Indian reserves with successful businesses. Anyone who’s spent any time on one of B.C.’s 198 Indian bands understands why Aboriginal business is so important. They’re among the most impoverished areas of the country. Poor living conditions, unemployment, crime and addiction have all become synonymous with rez life. The only way to change this is through sustainable economic development. And the best way to achieve that is by creating businesses of a quality equal to or greater than that of any non-native business. In the past, Indian bands have battled unemployment by simply creating new jobs within their governance systems. But this approach is vulnerable because it relies on increased government funds. There’s hope that change could be around the corner. The Osoyoos Indian Band Centre for Aboriginal Community Enterprise is a new education program aimed at teaching Indian bands how to battle unemployment by creating jobs through equitable business. Funded through Aboriginal Business Canada and a number of corporate sponsors, the school is organized by the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB). After years of teaching other communities their secrets to success, the consultants and managers at OIB decided to create a pilot program to teach other bands and businesses their strategies in a more organized way. The plan is that Indian bands will form corporate-structured organizations that exist separately from the Indian band itself, though the band will own that organization wholly. This will create a sound environment for focusing on business matters. A band will be able to separate its businesses from the “rez politics” that often occur in band offices. This will also ensure that business runs under an effective bureaucracy. Aboriginal people often see the separation of community and business as “selling out,” expressing anger when they see band-owned businesses operated by white people. But the reality is, if a band wants to create a successful business, the leader of that band has a responsibility to surround himself with the right people, regardless of race. Tourism offers a path out of the traditional government-funded make-work projects that have been a dismal failure in the past. Tourism BC estimates a growth of more than 50 per cent in aboriginal tourism in the coming two decades, and a strategy blueprint released by the Aboriginal Tourism Association of B.C. in 2005 lists 65 proposed new Aboriginal tourism products. The same tourism strategy blueprint – a plan designed by Aboriginal Tourism British Columbia and funded by the B.C. government – aims to increase provincial revenues in Aboriginal tourism by $20 million by 2010. Rather than simply create manual-labour jobs on reservations, its tourism training component aims to teach management, communications and business skills that are transferable to any sector. In the coming decade, I believe we’ll see many Indian bands launching themselves into the corporate world, and not just as lease-holders but as hard-working business innovators. Recent examples include the Upper Similkameen Indian Band, which turned an old gold mine into a tourist attraction with the Mascot Gold Mine Tours. Though the enterprise is still young and early returns are lower than predicted, this tiny band of 100 members is nevertheless training its youth in transferable business skills. The benchmark for aboriginal tourism is the Osoyoos Indian Band, whose tourism enterprise has three components: the Nk’Mip Resort, Nk’Mip Cellars winery and the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. The resort has a nine-hole golf course, full spa service and restaurant. Nk’Mip Cellars is North America’s first Aboriginal-owned winery and is the most-awarded young winery in Canada, exceeding its own revenue and sales projections. The winery is also training several OIB members in viticulture and oenology, as well as management. Efforts such as the OIB Centre for Aboriginal Community Enterprise, and the example set by the Nk’Mip band, will help pave the rocky road many First Nations people find themselves travelling today.