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Northern British Columbia is an area often overlooked as a business opportunity Mecca but to Ramona Materi, President, Ingenia Consulting, it is rich with possibilities. So, she decided to write a “how to do business” guidebook. British Columbia's New North: How to Build Your Business, Respect Communities--and Prosper is for national and international investors, global contractors as well as “mom and pop” business owners who want to set up shop in the region. The information is practical, targeted and insightful into economy, gaps in the economy (both existing and pending) and tips from residents on living in this vibrant region.

 Here at Indigenous Corporate Training we get lots of questions from our blog visitors. A very common one is “does your online, webinar, onsite, or public training answer specific questions about specific communities?” Below is an example of one such interaction with the answer to the question provided further down.

Every so often a shining example of recognizing an opportunity to reach out and work with an Aboriginal community for the betterment of all comes along that really tugs our heartstrings. This is the story of how a bunch of kids scrabbled together some tools and lumber and built their own mountain bike park all on their own, and in doing so launched the impetus for a visiting community planning consultant, Patrick Lucas, to create the Aboriginal Youth Mountain Biking Program (AYMBP). The Aboriginal Youth Mountain Bike Program is a non-profit, volunteer driven program to assist and support Aboriginal youth and communities to participate and excel in the sport of mountain biking and this is how it all began.

One of our newsletter subscribers, Rod Cunningham, brought to our attention an online ad regarding exclusive accommodation rates for the Aboriginal community, and made this comment “A nice example of how business can be more inclusive and welcoming to Aboriginal Peoples.” So, we decided to find out more about the initiative and the impetus behind it.

"When a people can laugh at themselves and laugh at others and hold all aspects of life together without letting anybody drive them to extremes, then it seems to me that that people can survive.” Vine Deloria Jr., author, theologian, historian

The following First Nation Elder protocol question popped up in our inbox and we are really grateful for the opportunity to respond. We appreciate people taking the time to reach out to us with specific questions that will help them in their goal for respectful relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

by Trevor Kehoe

Debunking Myths Surrounding Canada's Aboriginal Population was released by TD Economics on June 18, 2012. In the Special Report by TD Economics the authors take aim at issues like do Aboriginal people paying taxes, post secondary education, living in rural areas, falling behind in the job market and more...

Many non-Aboriginal people believe that it is important to maintain eye contact during conversation. For many Aboriginal Peoples, continuous eye contact may not be expected or even accepted as a courtesy of conversation. We once asked an Elder from a particular community for his thoughts on eye contact. This is what he had to say: