To fully include Indigenous people in the Canadian economy, businesses must learn about the culture and trauma of communities, according to Métis consultant Lionel Drouin.
After years of deliberately marginalizing indigenous populations, the business community wants to be part of reconciliation efforts. LDC Solutions’ team of consultants has also been providing training in “cultural awareness” in companies for several years.
“Several companies have a quantitative approach to inclusion. They can tick a box for each person [autochtone ou issue de la diversité] Said President Lionel Drouin, a member of the Red Sky Métis Nation in northern Ontario.
We must go much further, believes Mr. Drouin, by adapting human resources practices. For example, many First Peoples are more comfortable with a structure where everyone has a say than a very hierarchical structure, he says.
“Some managers will use competition to motivate their teams, but that may seem absurd for Aboriginal peoples, who think more of the community than of the individual,” said Mr. Drouin.
It is also necessary to take into account the fact that many members of the First Peoples have suffered trauma, in particular because of the residential schools and the scoop of the 1960s.
“My ex-wife was taken away from her mother just before she was two and placed with a pastor and his wife. Years later, I managed to find his mother. I also found out that she had a brother who had been uprooted. But I arrived two weeks too late because he had just taken his own life, ”says Mr. Drouin. The businessman says that his own family has long hidden their indigenous identity to avoid discrimination.
These traumas created many social problems that kept some Aboriginal people away from schools and the labor market. This is not to mention that villages have often been established far from large centers, forcing their inhabitants to go into exile to pursue higher education or to work. These problems will have to be resolved first before hoping to integrate everyone into the economy, recognizes Mr. Drouin.
HR practices to review
But in the meantime, companies should analyze their hiring policies to address systemic barriers, said the consultant. Starting with the degree requirements. “You have to be open to finding equivalences, to investing in training workers,” says Drouin.
According to him, Indigenous cultures also tend to value humility, which can put candidates at a disadvantage in job interviews, where employers expect them to “sell themselves”.
Mr. Drouin believes that revising these practices would end up being beneficial for the well-being of all workers.
Some companies are already engaged in this type of process, especially those that have projects near specific Aboriginal communities. Mr. Drouin cites the example of the Canadian National railway company and the Suncor oil company. Business opportunities have also been created by the many infrastructure projects announced by the federal government in Native villages.
LDC Solutions participates in a program of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business which aims to guide companies wishing to develop special relationships with communities. “They have to get to know them in order to work with them. Because all communities are different, he emphasizes. You really have to establish a bond of trust, because, too often, companies claiming to be friends have arrived, appropriated the resources and left, leaving a mess, with no benefit for the community. “
All Canadian businesses would do well to give importance to these issues. First, with the democratization of telework, many companies can now recruit workers directly from indigenous communities, regardless of their geographic location.
Second, emphasizes Mr. Drouin, fostering a diversity of voices can only be enriching and stimulate new ideas. Finally, the Aboriginal population, which is young and has a growth rate higher than the Quebec and Canadian average, has the potential to reduce the labor shortage. Statistics Canada predicts it will exceed 2.5 million people over the next two decades.
While we have just celebrated the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day, Mr. Drouin notes with hope that the First Nations, the Inuit and the Métis, finally, are no longer ignored.
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