Opinion: The First Nations are the first entrepreneurs – Calgary Herald

November 8, 2018

As soon as a natural resource development project gets underway, an outcry can be expected from environmental activists and First Nations members. If we follow the news, we may come to believe that Indigenous Peoples are unanimously opposed to development. But this is not the case.

Many communities have made the shift to natural resource development in the hope of taking control of their destiny. This should not come as a surprise if we consider that the First Nations were Canada’s “first entrepreneurs,” establishing sophisticated trading networks long before Europeans arrived. Nowadays, from the Cree of northern Quebec, active in the mining sector, to the Kw’alaams and Kitselas of British Columbia, working in forestry and natural gas respectively, not to mention the Fort McKay Nation of Alberta, getting rich from oil, the entrepreneurial torch is being carried far and wide.

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