Like most executives, Willie Charlie’s office is littered with family photos and heirlooms, but they mean something entirely different to him than they would to your typical business leader.
“It keeps him in line,” his brother Kelsey Charlie explained.
The finely framed photos of his parents, aunts, uncles and children tell a story.
They tell visitors, government officials and business partners who he is and where he comes from.
But they remind Charlie of the lessons the elders taught him, the spirits that govern his people’s traditional territory and, most importantly, who he represents.
“That’s exactly what my mom said,” said Charlie. “She said, ‘These are the things that are important to you, to make decisions in the world you’re in.’”
His world is Sts’ailes, or the Chehalis Indian Band, a community of 1,000, two hours east of Vancouver, sandwiched between the Chehalis and Harrison rivers.
Of that 1,000, approximately 550 live “on-reserve.”
The community is in the midst of a cultural re-awakening, Charlie said, and those who live off the reserve want to come back.
But he pointed out that there’s no place for them to live.
“We have so many people requesting or trying to find a way back home, but we have inadequate housing,” said Charlie, the band’s chief.
And that’s why, on a frosty February morning, Charlie and his administrative staff eagerly awaited the arrival of several officials from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).
The agenda for the day included a tour of the local school, healing centres and the “Medicine House,” a residential treatment centre for aboriginal people who struggle with alcohol and drug addictions.
Like so many other aboriginal communities, the Chehalis are still recovering from decades of abuse and oppression.
The band’s leaders believe Ottawa still has a duty to take care of the Chehalis, Charlie said.
According to INAC, that succor comes in the form of federal transfers that totalled $6.8 million in 2008 and 2009.
The community, however, needs even more help to support housing and health initiatives, fire services and economic development.
But before business can be addressed, culture and tradition must reign supreme.
“All of the stories and the history of the land is very evident in any discussions with government or business people that want to come in,” Charlie explained. “We tell you who we are, we share a meal and then we sit down and do business.”
That’s the way his people have done business for generations, he said.
After the meal, Chehalis and INAC officials got down to the business of the day.
At the end of a four-hour meeting, both sides were quick to praise how far their relationship had come, even though Chehalis questions received few concrete answers.
Charlie confirmed the relationship is positive.
But the Chehalis aren’t putting all their eggs in one basket.
Three years ago, the band formed the Sts’ailes Development Corp. in an effort to achieve financial independence and create jobs.
Since then, the band has:
- built and opened a new community store;
- bought the Sasquatch Crossing Eco Lodge bed and breakfast;
- increased group bookings at its Lhawathet Lalem retreat and wellness centre;
- increased employment through fisheries programs; and
- secured timber volumes from the province to support logging operations.
The Chehalis have also negotiated impact benefit agreements with run-of-river hydroelectric power developers such as Cloudworks Energy and Wind River Power.
Still, the band remains the community’s largest employer, with job numbers increasing to 302 from 160 four years ago.
Although the Chehalis remain economically tied to Ottawa, their independence has grown significantly in recent decades.
In 1974, the band employed one person – a part-time bookkeeper who worked out of the chief’s house.
A few years later, the Chehalis built their first administrative office. The building has since been replaced with a larger version that is already too small.
When Charlie became chief, he was also appointed CEO of the development corporation. That forced him to walk two paths: one as community leader and the other as a businessman.
Donald McInnis, vice-chairman and CEO of Plutonic Power (TSX:PCC), took part in a leadership exchange program with Charlie in 2009 that allowed him to spend a few days with the Chehalis.
He told Business in Vancouver the reason there’s so much mistrust between industry and aboriginals is because business leaders have no idea what challenges First Nations leaders face.
“As a CEO you’re generally guided by what is best for [your] shareholders and growing your company,” McInnis said. “As a chief, you’ve got a far broader set of responsibilities that go way beyond any financial bottom line … but the biggest thing, at the end of the day I go home. An aboriginal chief never leaves his constituency, he’s always working.”
In addition to the various hats Charlie wears as his community’s leader, he said industry often doesn’t understand that First Nations are fundamentally tied to the land, which makes resource extraction a polarizing issue.In Charlie’s case, his traditional name comes from the land.
“I can go around anywhere in our territory and I can tell you the history of the land,” Charlie said. “The way my late uncle Buster described it to me, he said, ‘Our stories, our legends are history.’”
Marlane Christensen, president of Vancouver’s Industry Council for Aboriginal Business, believes the gap between business and aboriginals exists due to decades of negative engagement.
She said one of the first things business should do when working with First Nations is relax timelines.
“Timing is something very different in an aboriginal world. It’s more important to build the relationship, and the timeline will take care of itself.”
McInnis agreed that relationship building is the key to success, though he added that First Nations communities would do well to make their business development strategies clear to industry from the start.
“Aboriginal people have a responsibility to make it known whether they are interested or not interested in natural resource development,” he said. “The business community wants certainty.”
One of the Chehalis’ top priorities is to develop a comprehensive economic development strategy, but Charlie said there’s still only one way to do business in his community.
“However we do business, we’re going to do business our way,” he said.
“You see businessmen go to other countries and they follow the Japanese or the Chinese or other protocols; we’ve got to do the same thing here.”