With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1484213
I n boardrooms across Can- ada, in any given moment there's a discussion ongo- ing about this organization's commitment to Indigenous communities or that company's action plan for reconciliation. A lot of the initial interest—before Canada's Truth and Reconcilia- tion Commission—was spurred by the United Nations Declara- tion on the Rights of Indigenous People ( UNDRIP), adopted by the UN's General Assembly in 2007. UNDRIP set a framework of minimum standards for "the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world." In 2019, B.C. became the first jurisdiction in Canada to pass legislation implement- ing UNDRIP, though it took until this March—and the release of an 89-point Declaration Act Action Plan—for the provincial government to make clear how exactly they'd do it. This sum- mer, the province ponied up $8.4 million to fund develop- ment of a reconciliation frame- work for B.C.'s community social services sector. Leslie Varley has spent de- cades in the sector—working as a consultant, a bureaucrat and director of Indigenous health for the Provincial Health Services Authority. Since 2016, she's been executive direc- tor of the BC Association of Masters of Their Own Domain A new MBA program at UVic aims to put Indigenous reconciliation at the forefront of business education by Matt O'Grady I T ' S A G O OD T H I NG ( quality time ) TOP: UVIC PHOTO SERVICES; SOURCE: B.C. GOVERNMENT 94 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 the education system. With this new funding, the BCAAFC is able to develop a new MBA in collaboration with UVic; billed as "the world's first MBA in Indigenous reconciliation," the UVic program is set to launch in the spring of 2023. Varley—whose late mother was a member of the Nisga'a Nation—spent her formative years on Digby Island, and knows the challenges of co- lonial education all too well. Early in her career, she helped develop training programs for band managers and native court workers, as well as train- ing materials for those needing high-school credits to go on to post-secondary education. "I went through the school system myself; I know how racist the education system is towards Indigenous people," says Varley. "There's always an assumption that we're dumb— and it's really hard to partici- pate in a system when you're feeling so alienated from it." Even when not overtly rac- ist, says Varley, schools can alienate Indigenous students by not speaking to their unique needs. She recalls what it was like when she went back to school in 2012, to get an execu- tive MBA in Aboriginal business and leadership from SFU. "I was in that first cohort, and they didn't have enough Indigenous perspectives informing the curriculum," she says, noting how the Nisga'a Treaty was highlighted as "a really effec- tive modern day treaty," and how the accounting class was simply an off-the-shelf course. "We learned how to calculate bonds. I thought, This is ridicu- lous. How many of us are ever going to need this again?" The hope with the UVic MBA (developed from the ground up) is that it will help foster Indigenous leadership in the nonprofit sector, where a new generation of talent is waiting in the wings. "We anticipate that, within five years, 60 per- cent of our current [executive directors] will be retiring," says Varley. Half of the space for the inaugural MBA class is reserved for the BCAAFC, allowing 25 leaders from the Friendship Centres to attend; the other co- hort will consist of Indigenous leaders within the ranks of gov- ernment and not-for-profits. "The province has made a commitment to reconciliation," says Varley, "but people are re- ally struggling to understand: What do I need to do to adjust my nonprofit society so that it can be culturally safe and rele- vant?" As B.C. works to support the "survival, dignity and well- being" of Indigenous people here, this new program offers a promising head start. n Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC), an umbrella organi- zation that delivers programs and services for Indigenous peoples across urban B.C. The BCAAFC is tasked with imple- menting this new reconciliation framework. One of the key challenges facing Varley and the BCAAFC is building leadership capacity within Indigenous-led non- profits, which are growing in scope and responsibility with each passing year. And much of the responsibility lies with NONPROFIT IMPACT Nonprofit organizations, including the 25 Indigenous-led Friendship Centres represented by the BCAAFC, are a vital part of the B.C. economy: B.C. is home to more than 29,000 nonprofit organizations They employ more than 86,000 people And contribute $6.7 billion to B.C.'s economy To challenge the lack of Indigenous perspectives informing business programs across Canada, the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres partnered with the University of Victoria to develop a new MBA program focused on Indigenous reconciliation.