Sounds like Noront was here?

Tara Perkins

Globe and Mail Update Published on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010 6:57PM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010 3:36AM EST

Eight chief executive officers filed into a 68th-floor boardroom in Bank of Montreal's Toronto tower Tuesday to swap ideas with the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, a sign of what leaders on Bay Street and in Canada's aboriginal communities say is a burgeoning relationship between the two groups.

The meeting, convened by BMO's head of wealth management, Gilles Ouellette, attracted a cross-section of corporate leaders, including the heads of two mining companies, the Ontario Power Authority, and a vice-president of IBM.

The gathering took place just after AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo spoke to the Toronto Board of Trade, the first time an assembly chief had appeared before the country's largest local chamber of commerce.

“We're seeing a lot of firsts,” Mr. Atleo said later.

Aboriginal leaders and corporate executives say that environmental and social awareness, and a spate of successful and profitable joint ventures are heightening the desire on both sides to form partnerships.

“In areas like alternative energy and clean power [the first nations] are just natural partners in the new economy,” said Mark McQueen, CEO of Wellington Financial LP. The investment firm has a private equity fund that has done two transactions with companies that had joint ventures with first nations groups.

“And there's not a resource entity in the country that's going to be able to do a new project without having a good relationship with the first nations in the area, period.”

The trend goes beyond that, other business leaders say. “For businesses like mining, it has an immediate impact, but for others this is a growing opportunity,” Mr. Ouellette said. In part, that stems from a growing desire among Canadians to do business with companies “that are trying to right what is a huge problem in this country,” he said. “If there is anything that is setting back Canadian society, it's really the plight of the aboriginals.”

Mr. Atleo, who succeeded Phil Fontaine as National Chief last summer, is a hereditary chief from the Ahousaht First Nation on Vancouver Island. He said his community has seen its unemployment rate drop to 50 per cent from 85 per cent, thanks to new business links.

“Fifty-per-cent unemployment isn't acceptable to anybody, but we forged business partnerships to accomplish that shift. So we're talking [to Bay Street] about how we take that to the next level,” he said.

Mr. Atleo and Ontario regional chief Angus Toulouse give Mr. Fontaine much of the credit for laying the groundwork for the new relationship with Bay Street. After he retired last year, Mr. Fontaine became a special adviser to Royal Bank of Canada and started an Ottawa-based advisory firm. He has become involved with projects such as a river-run power plant in British Columbia developed by Plutonic Power Corp., and a site that Avalon Rare Metals Inc. is exploring in the Northwest Territories.

“Future wealth creation is still going to be very much dependent on our natural resources, whether we're talking oil and gas, forestry, pipelines, fisheries, and now the green economy. Much of the future development will take place on first nations' lands and territories,” Mr. Fontaine said in an interview Tuesday. “This … calls for partnerships, equity positions, joint ventures. The old way of doing business is out the window. ”