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CEO’s are Pressuring Premiers to Create Business Partnerships with First Nations Groups
July 17, 2012 by prospectingjournal · Leave a Comment
GUEST COMMENTARY–ProspectingJournal.com–Equality is more than just a dream: Aboriginal communities will become full-fledged partners when taking hold of Canada’s vast resource wealth.
CEO’s are stepping up their game when negotiating with Aboriginal communities. Mining and energy companies wish to partner with aboriginals. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives have developed a report that will urge all provincial premiers to put this partnership into practice.
The report states that provincial governments should develop educational plans for working Aboriginals so that they can become smart business negotiators. This will help spread the resource wealth amongst corporations, shareholders and aboriginal communities.
John Manley, the council’s chief executive, has said “stakes are high: the viability of billions of dollars in natural resource investment. You have to find a negotiation arrangement where everybody benefits. The problem from the business side is more one of predictability of process.” This business proposition is an outstanding turning point for aboriginal groups. Canadian finances in commodities can be equally spread.
Manley also notes the downside of not creating these partnerships in a timely manner. He states, “Because if you can’t get there in a reasonable period of time, or if you can’t figure out how you are going to manage all of the different and contradictory interests, the odds are, your capital will be better deployed elsewhere.”
Knowing there are pockets of resources found in other sectors of the globe will prompt corporations to invest their time into projects there. This known fact will be a true selling point for native groups living within the resource hotbeds.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has been making efforts in speeding up the paper work for natural resource development. A key example of this is when the federal government invested $1.36 million in aboriginal support in environmental assessment. This allows aboriginal groups to first be negotiated with before resource extraction can begin.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives are trying hard to steer away from the federal government by relying on a new method of government intervention through provincial premiers. John Manely has stated “there’s not an appetite for it,” within Ottawa.
I guess we need to stay tuned to see if the provincial governments approve these reports.
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Jyoti Sahota
ProspectingJournal.com
