Decolonizing Organizational Practices for Reconciliation Webinar

First session of the 4-part series on Walking the Path of Reconciliation: A Business- Focuses Webinar Series

Series Partners, and session presenters: Muskoka Group

• Wayne Kaboni - Director Founder
• Dr. Martina Jakubchik-Paloheimo - Postdoctoral Researcher

Guest Speakers:

• Elder Barbara Nepinak of Pine Creek First Nation
• Joseph Bastien - Associate Director at the Reconciliation & Responsible Investment Institute
• Kevin Vincent Sandy - Visionary CEO, Otahyoni Management

Opening Prayer presented by: Elder Barbara Nepinak

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Key Takeaways:

• “Positionality” in the context of Social Justice is a concept that refers to how differences is social position and power shape intersectional identities and access within society. In a business context, understanding individual biases and social identities is useful and important for providing a framework on how to be inclusive considering the unique experiences that members of your team, potential new hires, or other partners bring to your organization. 
• Decolonial theory interrogates how ways of thinking and knowledge making practices have marginalized specific people, by privileging Western (and often White) ways of knowing. Decolonization involves starting to acknowledge and honour Indigenous culture, identity, languages, science, and value systems that colonialism attempted to erase. In a business context, the term “decolonization” can be translated into a core principle of engagement by prioritizing mutual respect, recognition, and understanding.
• A common mistake that corporations can make when attempting to create space for Indigenous voices, is the misrepresentation of “Inclusion” as “Tokenism”. Sometimes referred to as the “Rent a Feather” theory. A key component of successful Indigenous engagement is Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) by communities and individuals before proceeding with economic development projects, and partnerships. This concept of FPIC ensures that communities are well-informed, can freely participate, and have real decision-making power before a project proceeds.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #92 for Business states jobs, training, and education opportunities as three areas where Indigenous peoples should have equal access across the corporate sector. The kind of training that is required for Management and Staff under this Call to Action needs to be skills-based training on the history of Indigenous peoples, including residential schools, treaties and Indigenous Law. A first step for all companies to undertake is to provide cultural awareness training to all employees.
• Indigenous Reconciliation Action Plans (IRAPs)are a structure that businesses should implement and publish outlining the principles of reconciliation within procurement, partnerships, recruitment, hiring, and retention. It is also important to include the mention of the acknowledgement of past mistakes, and reviewing existing policies that may be based on colonial frameworks within an organization. Colonial frameworks often present themselves as an absence of strategies and policies with little to no consideration of Indigenous Rights, especially in companies who are just starting their Reconciliation journeys. For companies who are more mature, and may already have an IRAP, colonial structures can still be seen through unclear policies, broad platitudes, and a lack of specific, transparent data and reporting on progress.
• Building culturally appropriate consultation frameworks requires businesses to understand community engagement protocols, cultural norms, and community priorities before agreeing to anything. Understanding community priorities such as hunting seasons when scheduling community engagements is important for businesses to understand because community members may be unavailable as they are sustaining themselves on the land. Building community capacity in the context of Reconciliation involves empowering communities to participate actively in consultation, negotiations, and sustainable business development. 
• One of the most common barriers for companies starting their Reconciliation journey is the fear of screwing up, not knowing where to start, and thinking that the process is too complicated to even begin. Starting from a place of honesty, and conducting a “current state and gap analysis” to determine a company's starting point is a good first step for companies who don’t know where to start. Reconciliation is not a problem to be solved within this quarter, next month, or next week, but is rather an iterative, ongoing, long-term process of continual effort, learning, and progression. The intentionality of Reconciliation work should be centered on building relationships, being respectful and having reciprocity. 
• A current challenge and fear being faced is how the current Bill C-5 could weaken the approach to Reconciliation and Indigenous Rights by abrogate treaty rights by putting more onus on government and potentially removing requirements for community consultation and environmental assessments. 
• The biggest red flag for businesses seeking to assess their operations from an Indigenous Reconciliation lens is the absence of bringing in external, objective, and community-informed Indigenous voices into the process of developing its Reconciliation Plan. A company cannot be entirely objective when assessing it’s own impact on Indigenous peoples entirely “in-house”, without talking to Indigenous peoples

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Outstanding Questions that needed to be answered from the audience Q&A:

1. What are key points that should be included in a strong, meaningful Corporate Indigenous Policy?

Inclusion, openness and transparency on understanding challenges, seek unbiased guidance, look for alliance and insight   

2. As various Indigenous (and non-Indigenous groups) will have different perspectives on the merits and risks of potential initiatives, especially with regard to resource extraction, are there ways of working through those differences that are Indigenous informed, and consistent with UNDRIP principles, that you could share examples of?

Understand history of the land and impacts to culture, clear and mutual respect on real timelines such exploration to closure, remediation and care and maintenance  in mining, impacts of forestry on wildlife and ecosystems, listen learn and then develop strategies

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