“Things are happening, a shift is taking place,” says Calvin Helin, CEO of IndSight Advisers, as he reflects on the economic situation facing Canada’s Indigenous peoples. “There’s a whole body of young Indigenous people who are coming forward with constructive ideas about how to [build wealth]. And deals are being done.”
Helin, a business executive from the Tsimshian First Nation, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with True North. The conversation arose following the announcement of Indigenous Nexus 2023, a conference coming up in January, co-organized by Helin, that’s being touted as the first of its kind in the way it aims to bring together Indigenous leaders, business executives and Canadian politicians.
“What we want to do with this conference is get people together who are prepared to take a fresh look at the situation in the light of common sense,” Helin says. “We’ve all got to eat… and we should be cooperating and working together in the best way possible to build a bigger pie for all Canadians to share in.”
Helin points out that demographic data shows Indigenous persons are both the youngest and fastest growing population in Canada. “We need all of those young people in the workforce,” says Helin, the son of a hereditary chief. “They’re the future to everybody’s pensions.”
One positive change Helin cites is how First Nations communities in a number of provinces are now buying equity shares in natural resources companies and other businesses.
“In New Zealand the Maoris have been moving quite a long way down this road,” Helin says. He points to how their communities collectively had $6 billion in commercial assets in the 1970s, but they have since grown that to $70 billion. “They focused on education and getting into the real economy.”
Helin was recently an advisor to the Alberta government, assisting with the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Fund. While he’s excited about the deals that have taken place so far, he’s concerned about business conditions in Canada more broadly.
“What we’re getting from Ottawa basically is that we’re closed for business,” Helin says. He cites German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent visit to Canada as an example, where the European leader was basically sent away empty-handed after hoping to secure natural resources from Canada.
When it comes to the view some Canadians have that Indigenous people are opposed to economic growth, Helin says that’s a misconception.
“Recent polls have found that 65% of Indigenous Peoples support or strongly support natural resource development, and 83% of Canadians believe that natural resource development is a major contributor to the economy,” reads a press release for Indigenous Nexus.
That said, Helin emphasizes it’s still important to listen to the concerns of protesters and for governments to do even more in their duty to consult affected First Nations communities. He just doesn’t care for groups that try to use Indigenous communities for their own agendas.
“There are some protests and there are good reasons for protests,” Helin says. “I mean nobody wants to harm our environment. But I think what seems to have happened is that Big Green — the big international NGOs — come into Canada, they’ve got huge amounts of money and huge power in terms of their media reach and they amplify the voices of a few when, for example in the Wet’suwet’en case, you’ve got every community vote and agree to support the LNG project.”
The full line-up for Indigenous Nexus has yet to be released, but they’ve confirmed Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will be the keynote speaker.
As for Helin, he’s putting the final touches on two books he wrote during the pandemic — one that’s titled Rise: Moving Indigenous Nations from Poverty to Power and the other a personal narrative about growing up on a reserve.
While Helin’s a busy man these days, there’s one thing all his projects have in common: growing the economic pie. “We have to start looking at how to create wealth in Indigenous communities and there has to be a focus on prosperity,” he says.
