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long-term, sustainable benets from projects that boost eco- nomic development. "Reconciliation is funda- mentally about dierent parties coming together to create an understanding of how to work together moving forward," says Kerry Mehaey, CEO of Lil'wat Management Services, the com- pany that manages the Nation's businesses. But, he adds, "Without a strong economic base, one party will always be at a disadvantage when dealing with the other." Mehaey notes that the Nation has two key objec- tives: improving services to the community and achieving self-government. Both require "funding outside of core fund- ing received from any level of government," he says. Like many First Nations, Lil'wat separates business and politics. Its business unit consists of ve companies, including forestry and retail divisions. The businesses employ 70 people and bring in $20 million annually in own-source revenue (OSR), money raised in addition to government funding. Over the past few years, the Nation has reinvested nearly $1 million a year in projects it otherwise wouldn't have had funding for: an immersion-language classroom, updated outdoor space for kids, and language and culture programs. Under Political Chief Dean Nelson and Cultural Chief Leonard Andrew, the Nation's 2016™23 strategic plan identies increasing OSR as a goal. Two years into that plan, the Nation is seeing movement. In 2016, it opened a $7.3- million post-secondary training institute, the Ts'zil Learning Centre, a satellite campus of Capilano University. Last summer, 35 people who participated in forest re train- ing at Ts'zil fought blazes in the worst re season on record in B.C. Other former students joined the team working with Murphy Construction at Whistler Blackcomb and on other projects in the region. O reserve, Lil'wat has an 80,000-square-foot mixed residential and commercial development planned for Function Junction in Whistler on 2.15 hectares of land it acquired through the Legacy Land Agreement of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Win- ter Games. The site has been excavated and cleared; await- ing development permits, the Nation aims to start building in 2019. The project will create about 20 permanent jobs. Another example of recon- ciliation through collaboration is Lil'wat's participation in the Pemberton and District Cham- ber of Commerce. Graham Turner, the Nation's current representative at the board table, is serving his second term as president. In 2017, Turner and the Chamber proposed an Economic Development Collab- orative to unite representatives from Pemberton-area munici- palities and communities, including three First Nations, the Village of Pemberton and Area C of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, and take a united approach to developing the local economy. The collaborative's rst project was an online portal of regional statistics such as popu- lation, employment, education, housing and income. Turner says it will help businesses analyze the workforce and employment trends, establish a baseline for the collaborative to measure economic growth, and support organizations when applying for grants. "We are still a little one- stoplight town, but we're trying to grow," he adds of the region, which has 5,700 residents. Next, the collaborative hopes to secure funding for a regional economic develop- ment plan that would identify overall priorities, key projects and stakeholders, and ulti- mately boost business revenue. But money isn't the only consideration for Lil'wat. "We want value and partner- ships," Armann says. "Good relationships help lead to reconciliation." To honour the season of holiday binges, o¦ce- party treat tables and nights spent cuddling up with a bowl of chips, we bite into the stats behind B.C. snacks by Melissa Edwards Munching the Numbers ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E READ THIS Dan Pontefract, chief envisioner at Telus and adjunct professor at UVic, believes speed has become a weapon against thoughtfulness. His latest book, Open to Think: Slow Down, Think Creatively, and Make Better Decisions, explores how to balance creative, critical and applied thinking. Pontefract cites diverse experts and examples, from Warren Buffett to how Chuck Noland, the character played by Tom Hanks in the 2000 film Cast Away, thought his way off the desert island. Each chapter ends with tips or questions for individuals and organizations, and there are 10 essential guidelines for open thinking to take away at the end. Figure 1 Publishing 272 pages, hardcover, $36.95 SOURCES: STATISTICS CANADA, DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY by Melissa Edwards $460.2 million TOTAL CANADIAN SALES AT LARGE RETAILERS THAT MONTH 41% Increase over the monthly national average for sales of candy, confectionary and snack foods during December 2016 $68 Average household spending on store-bought snack food in B.C., 2016 $18 below the Canadian average 42% of British Columbians in a 2017 Dalhousie University study said they snacked to the point that it stopped them from eating meals during regular hours 14 BCBUSINESS DECEMBER/JANUARY 2019

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