"The study of new venture and small business management that you are about to undertake will develop your awareness of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and allow you to identify needed areas of development. The course will also allow you to become acquainted with strategic issues facing new ventures and related expertise in the functional areas of marketing, finance and operations."
"In the late nineteenth century, to the alarm of government conservationists, the North American plains bison population collapsed. Yet large herds of other big game animals still roamed the Northwest Territories, and Aboriginal people depended on them for food and clothing. Hunters at the Margin examines the conflict in the Northwest Territories between Native hunters and conservationists over three big game species: the wood bison, the muskox, and the caribou.
"What we have established in this paper is that the economic state of Canada's first peoples today is deplorable, that the costs of the status quo to the public purse are high and rising, and that any costs incurred by the federal government in addressing these problems are a lot more affordable today than was the case just a few years ago. We have also provided a brief outline of the economic strategy recommended by RCAP."
The Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University
Year of publication:
2004
"The purpose of the project was to investigate what other First Nations have done to support their small business operators, and to create a process to look at what could be done in your community."
The tools, traditions and relationships that it takes to re-build First Nations, to realize good governance, were the three key elements discussed at the Aboriginal Financial Management Association of B.C.- INAC conference on Governance and Accountability, held in Vancouver, June 10-11, 2002.
"An Aboriginal workers' co-operative in Winnipeg, Neechi Foods, has developed a series of community economic development (CED) principles that seem to offer a much more comprehensive view of "sustainability." A view that could readily encompass the resource focused definition, but which clearly goes beyond it. This approach to sustainability was developed specifically to address urban economic development, but it could easily be adapted for remote and rural economies too. These principles have been refined over time, through discussion and debate, and now number eleven in total.
"This study explores the question: how can Aboriginal communities foster a supportive climate for Aboriginal entrepreneurs and business start-up? The literature review finds a high degree of compatibility between the characteristics and strategies of community economic development and Aboriginal economic development. The unique aspects of Aboriginal economic development are further examined, including the history of Aboriginal communities, challenges faced, the importance of long-term approaches, cultural issues that impact Aboriginal economic development, and critical success factors.
"This study examines the historical development of corporate governance structures in First Nations communities in British Columbia, where development corporations are employed to assist privately-owned and community-owned entrepreneurial enterprises. First Nations entrepreneurial activity functions in an environment where business must market to a global economy while preserving traditional values, beliefs and other cultural elements. A brief history of First Nations and their enterprise development efforts is presented.
"Aboriginal communities are increasingly turning toward aboriginal tourism development to diversify their economic base, validate their claims related to proprietary rights over traditional lands and re-connect youth with elders and the community to their land and their culture. Oftentimes, these development initiatives are tied to broader community development goals, yet the success of the tourism project is generally measured by its market readiness, revenue generation and job creation.
"Again last year, the United Nations related Canada the best country in the world to live in. This assessment is based upon a country's Human Development Index. Even so, not everyone in Canada enjoys the advantages of living in a highly developed country. In November 1996 the Canadian government published the four-thousand-page, $58 million Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP 1996), a report that reviewed and made recommendations about a wide range of social and economic issues related to Canada's Aboriginal peoples.
