The Tsawwassen miracle

The traffic-snarled opening weekend at the Tsawwassen Mills shopping centre a year ago may have turned some people off, but overall the Tsawwassen First Nation has made remarkable strides since signing a treaty eight years ago to settle its land claim and become self-governing. Indeed, this report in Bloomberg Businessweek holds up the band as a model for aboriginal engagement in Canada’s modern economy. Not so many first nations are so lucky to be located on the fringes of a major metropolis, however, where the demand for land and labour is high.

In this pocket of Canadian suburbia, only 39 per cent had a full-time job a decade ago. Today, the community is nearly at full employment, according to the office of the chief. The tax coffers have swelled twentyfold in the last five years from $600,000 to $12 million. The mall and the logistics centre are forecast to create 8,000 permanent jobs, while new housing developments will bring in 6,000 new residents.

“They’ve accomplished what every First Nation would like,” says Shane Gottfriedson, the former head of British Columbia’s Assembly of First Nations, which represents the 203 indigenous groups in the province. “Success doesn’t happen by coincidence. They’re talking a new language, which is business.”