Natural Resources Committee on May 7th, 2019

[Raylene Whitford]

If I may just add, it's also in the DNA of North American indigenous people. If you go right back to the fur trade, when we were providing furs to the Hudson's Bay Company, you'll see it is very much in our DNA, as well.

If you could fast-forward a few hundred years, one of the things that's inspiring me to return to Canada is this revival of indigenous entrepreneurship. There are so many people in the country now who.... Ten years ago when I left the country, this wasn't happening, but now you're seeing people creating incredible businesses with new ideas, who are really motivated and really hard-working to do this. It's just about providing them with the tools to be able to do so. I think indigenous people of Canada, New Zealand and Ecuador, whom I have seen, are very willing to put in the hard work, but because we have started a few steps back, it's difficult for us to get ahead.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Raylene, you had mentioned in your comments earlier that in Canada we were probably midway to where the Maori people are in New Zealand as regards the development process in being engaged in natural resource development.

If you were speaking to indigenous communities in Canada today, what advice would you give them in engaging in commerce, in industry and in resource development?

[Raylene Whitford]

I would first say the exact same thing that I say to the communities in Ecuador, “It's your decision.” They should do what they like, and they have that freedom of choice that is their own.

I would encourage them to explore the opportunities, to understand the life cycle of the industry from start to finish and to engage in these conversations with an open heart and open mind, but also with the knowledge or support of being able to understand what's being spoken about. The language of the industry, the language of oil and gas, especially the language of drilling, is very different, and sometimes if you pitch that against literacy issues, that in itself is very difficult for indigenous communities, let alone non-indigenous communities. It's taking it slow, it's understanding the issues and it's doing their homework. But at the end of the day, it's their decision.

[Chris Karamea Insley]

I can offer one really important and related point. You've heard it from Raylene and from me. It is this very close connection that the Maori have with indigenous people of the world, including first nations people. By that I mean that all of the knowledge and everything we have learned, we are putting on the table and sharing with our indigenous family of the world.

All of the lifelong lessons [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Beamish, while we're waiting for the others to come back, do you have comments on all the things you've been hearing in the last few minutes? I know we've been focusing a lot on them, but I know you have quite a lot to offer.

[Robert Beamish]

I do appreciate that. I also know Chris is an excellent resource. I've sat with him before on panels at conferences. It's not my first time, but it's definitely always [Inaudible—Editor] when I'm on the floor with Chris. I do appreciate that as well, but definitely do recognize the knowledge that he's bringing.

There is one point. The last time I was in committee, toward the end I was asked a question about how we could attract investment to Canada from Asia and internationally and how we could raise that awareness. Time ran out when that question was asked the last time. I took that and I wanted to address how that could be done as it relates to indigenous communities and attracting investment for indigenous communities.

What I've seen from previous work I had with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and working alongside the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong—which was mainly focused on driving investment from Hong Kong to Canada—was that there was not the awareness of [Technical difficulty—Editor] or training for the trade commissioners that were abroad. Speakers, or their own independently organized trade delegations, would be organized from indigenous communities to attract business to those communities, but there wasn't that partnership that Chris mentioned, when political leaders would travel abroad and have a cultural delegation of Maori people alongside them. Commissioners in consulates or in embassies in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce abroad did not have any kind of awareness or sense of what's happening in the Canadian indigenous community.

It was actually the lack of this that spurred the start of our business, Anokasan Capital, in order to spread that awareness and to educate both East Asians about opportunities in indigenous communities and indigenous communities here in Canada about opportunities in East Asia.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you for that. I do appreciate the comments. They are helpful.

Chris and Raylene, are you able to hear me again?

Chris, I wanted to build on your answers to Mr. Falk's questions just before you were cut off. The question I wanted to ask is specifically about how you engage with other indigenous communities around the world when you open that door. I'd like to walk through it and learn more about the process that is going on and how that interaction is going to take those best practices the Maori are learning and share them with the rest of the world.

Can you hear me? It doesn't look encouraging.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I wanted to build on what Mr. Falk said just before you disappeared. You were talking about sharing your best practices with indigenous communities around the world. I wanted to learn more about what you are up to and how it's working and if you are going through or around governments around the world to get better results. Are the communities working directly together and what kind of results you are seeing?

[Chris Karamea Insley]

It's a really good question again—and it's happening. As I said, it's an “and, and”.

First, we are now repeating our interests in and thoughts about the free trade agreements at the invitation of the New Zealand government. That's intended to be an enduring process and contribution to those formal agreements, so that our interests become embedded in o those free trade agreements right from the outset. The chief economist for our New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs used the terms because he understands the compound annual growth rate numbers, and it's such a no-brainer that governments need to engage and help to get those interests embedded into those free trade agreements.

So we're working through that right now and it continues to be an ongoing process.

Second, there is an enormous amount of business-to-business trading and discussion going on between Maori businesses and first nations. We had another colleague in the room with us today, sharing the numerous numbers from a period of 20 years, backwards and forwards, toing and froing. He talked about some of the discussions he's involved in sitting on a board in the mining energy sector. He's involved in another trade with first nations in the agriculture sector.

So it's an “and, and” answer. I underline again that we, as Maori people, value and are sharing all of the lifelong lessons we've learned with indigenous peoples of the world, including first nations.

[Raylene Whitford]

If I may just quickly add to that.

I was invited by Chris to begin to learn about how the Maori do things: how they have developed. I gave a lecture yesterday at a university, for example, and the Maori in the room were very interested to hear about first nations, the Métis and the Inuit of Canada. So there definitely is this kind of leaning in that you see in international indigenous communities. But at this point, I don't know.... I've never had government support to do this. From what I've seen, it's all direct engagement. So you get an introduction—somebody else introduces you—and that way, you form this relationship. I would like to see more government support of this international liaising, engagement, discussion, communication among indigenous communities, because all the issues we face are the same. All the issues the Ecuadorean indigenous communities face are the same as Canada's and as the Maori's here in New Zealand.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's great.

I'm out of time, but I want to thank you for sharing your tomorrow morning with us.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Shannon Stubbs]

And to wrap up for us, Richard, you have for three minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'd like to get around to my questions for Mr. Beamish.

Mr. Insley talked about the various steps that engagement processes take, dealing with historical issues and moving to social issues, and the land, environmental and finally to financial issues. I'm just wondering how that might match up with your four e's. You talked about employment, equity, environment, education. Is there some order to those four e's that you've experienced when you are engaging with indigenous communities? Is that equity part the last, and the education early on and then the environment?

[Robert Beamish]

The order is usually driven by the community and what their priorities are. The environment could come first, depending on the project and the proposed development and the impact this would have; or based on the partnerships they've had in the past, the equity is the first thing that comes up. But that's community driven. We know those four e's are going to be the pillars of the conversation, so we we are transparent that these are areas that we are going to address and let that be driven by our partners in how that conversation develops around those talks.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Just focusing on the education part, we hear a lot about skills training and education at this committee. I'm just wondering how deeply you get into that with your investors and projects. Is the education and skills training component an important part of what your project might provide to communities?

[Robert Beamish]

It is. We don't quite take the same method when we go with investors. When we are talking to investors, we would set aside almost a reserve of what would be dedicated to social needs, and that reserve is discussed with partners in the community and outside partners. We don't claim to be social development experts. My background is in finance. I would love to be a finance and social development expert, but I'm just working on the finance piece right now. We're bringing talent that knows this area, that will work with the community, that will engage. These are other indigenous consultants who work in social development, and we work with them to define what kind of budget would be needed to get to these levels that communities want to reach and what we have available as a reserve from our investors in order to finance that. The investors aren't necessarily there on that level negotiating social development, but we work with outside partners to achieve that goal in a way that works for the community.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Shannon Stubbs]

Thank you, everyone.

That's it for our final meeting on this study. I want to thank the witnesses for joining us and for your patience with our technical challenges with video conferencing.

I'd also like to thank the interpreters, our technical support people for addressing the technical issues, the clerk for keeping me on track and making me look as if I know what I'm doing and my colleagues for making this job easy for me today.

We don't yet know the date and time of our next meeting, so I'm just going to bang this gavel and adjourn this meeting.