October 10, 2018 - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - Session 2

Date: October 10, 2018
Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Key themes or ideas

1. Integrated participation is a goal.
2. Governmental role
3. Infrastructure
4. Indigenous export strategy
5. Education, capacity building and
6. Enhancing procurement

Q1) What does a stronger western Canadian economy look like 10 years from now?

• There needs to be more cross community partnerships including rural municipalities and bands.
• Currently we have passive participation of Indigenous people but we need to integrate the indigenous population in to agriculture production and value added.
• Brokering partnerships between nations, sectors such as agriculture and fisheries will create the capacity and pathways for greater economic development.
• Building a supply chain to keep more of the profits rather than just handing off commodities to other organizations would strengthen indigenous communities and advance economic development.

Q2) What are the best ways to spur new growth in western Canada

• Taking advantage of the agricultural sector.  There are significant amounts of untapped land and much that can be purchased through treaty land settlements.
• There is limited access to capital for indigenous people, enhancing this will spur new growth.
• The development of a strategy around exporting commodities would help to accelerate growth.

Q3) What will help the Indigenous economy continue to grow?

• Many young indigenous people are getting the talent but we need to meet them at the door and provide them with opportunities.
• There is great value in supporting projects other than just First Nations Band projects. If you have an individual starting a business on reserve they have to go through the Chief and council to do it.
• Young mentorship programs can be a useful tool.
• The internet is a good tool to help with culture shock.

Q4) How can we improve economic participation in the west of underrepresented groups, including women, youth, and new immigrants

• Creating capacity and pathways through entrepreneurial education at a younger age is important to growth.
• Support for women needs to be bolstered as they typically have more home responsibilities so business tasks gets put off.
• The development of worker and production co-ops can help with scale up and offset cost and duties, i.e. craft co-ops where several go together in a booth.

Q5) How can governments, industry, and western Canadians work together to grow the regional economy?

• Furthering community knowledge of government’s role to support development is necessary.
  • There is some confusion on programming.  Having the ability to just lay out the different opportunities would be useful.
• Access to internet and broadband is an ongoing issue.
• Access to affordable power continues to be a challenge in some communities.
• There needs to be an assessment or evaluation of where indigenous business is involved (which sectors, capacity). There are some job fairs and business match events but there are more opportunities for things like government procurement.
• Enhancing access to government procurement would drive economic development.
• Take advantage to engage indigenous people early on given the inherent treaty rights.