I was thinking about all the different experiences I've had when this issue has come up and how we've muddled through it, if you will, because it's been a new topic and a new idea in the last decade or so. However, certainly at the NACCA level—I'm a former chair of NACCA, by the way—when I sat at that table, we were interfacing with government on various projects and various issues, and this question of what was meant by economic reconciliation started coming up, so we had our own internal thing that we'd have to communicate back and forth.
In another life, right now, I actually teach courses on economic development with first nations institutes, and one of the questions that is coming up at that level is, “What is economic reconciliation?” One of the questions I ask my students is, “What is economic reconciliation to you? Here's some of the stuff that's coming up.”
What I've learned is that it means different things to different people, and we need to honour that it means different things to different people.
Also, in another area of my life, I work directly with first nations in interfacing with industry on getting reasonably sizable projects off the ground with first nations partnership. We have to educate each other about what is going on and how it's impacting the first nation from their perspective, and it takes time. I've sat with industry, and they've said, “Why would we want to sign an agreement that says that we will not abrogate indigenous rights?” We tell them that's it's kind of standard, but they don't know that, and so we have to educate each other about what we want.
What I've noticed is that generally speaking, for us, we don't have time constraints. Generations aren't a big issue for us on a project. We're thinking long term. We're not here to buy this and turn it over and flip it in 10 years. Ninety-nine year leases don't mean much to us, because we know we're going to be here in 99 years, and I think we just have to start getting into their mindset. They operate at the speed of business. Time is much different, so how we can understand each other and get business done, I think, is a learning process, but it's a good thing, and the more we learn from each other, the more we adapt to each other, and the more benefit, I think, can come from both of us.