Rice talks business in Toronto
The Canadian Council of Indigenous Business forum brought together Indigenous leadership in Toronto this week. Courtesy Paul Rice
Fostering economic development and sharing Kahnawake’s achievements in the business world were top of mind for Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) chief Paul Rice at the Canadian Council of Indigenous Business (CCIB) Central Business forum, which took place in Toronto this week.
“Part of our political priorities includes building relationships. We want to build relationships with other communities and stand shoulder to shoulder with them, so that we can improve economies not only for ourselves in Kahnawake,” said Rice, who is the lead on the economic development portfolio at MCK. “For us, Kahnawake is obviously the most important, but we want to look at opportunities that are available to us with different nations as well, geographically speaking.”
The CCIB forum took place yesterday, February 26, and featured networking opportunities as well as panels and talks from industry experts. Rice spoke on a panel titled “Shifting the Focus: Why Indigenous Economic Development Should Champion Small Business,” which was presented by the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub.
He shared with attendees the entrepreneurial spirit that is alive and well in Kahnawake, giving his thoughts on how to best support local entrepreneurs in launching small and medium-sized businesses.
“In Kahnawake, we have hundreds of entrepreneurs doing everything from being solo entrepreneurs to running partnerships, and not a single business in Kahnawake is owned by the MCK,” Rice said. “Entrepreneurs in our community provide thousands of jobs in the private sector, and our social assistance is the lowest it’s ever been. So it’s really important we promote our entrepreneurial sector.”
He said that there was particular focus on how to best support business owners in reaching their economic goals.
“For me, it’s about making sure our businesses in Kahnawake will be provided opportunity for procurement. There’s a lot of projects going on and there’s a lot of companies that want to purchase or receive services from Indigenous businesses,” he said. “In my role as economic development portfolio chief, I want to bring those connections back to the territory so that they can have workshops and do specific workforce development activities to help support our entrepreneurs and our workforce.”
The conference also provided an opportunity to continue building on pre-existing relationships with communities that Kahnawake could have economic partnerships with, as well as communities who face different economic challenges to Kahnawake that can provide insight about their experiences in the business world.
“Most other nations own and operate their own businesses, so they’re always looking to hear how we do things differently, and it’s always good to exchange information and get new ideas,” he said. “We’re all located in different geographic areas and we all have different types of business models, so it’s always interesting to hear what those other nations are doing.”
