Investing in Indigenous innovation will unleash Sask. economy

The Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology argues for greater access to Saskatchewan’s growing tech sector for Indigenous people.

It is officially summer in Canada, a season synonymous with the canoe and the kayak. While these vessels are a vacation staple across the country, many are unaware of their deeper history.

Both are powerful examples of Indigenous technologies that responded to the environment with such precision, they remain central in contemporary life. Indigenous innovations offer unique solutions to issues faced by communities, regions and the country.

There are rich examples here in Saskatchewan.

After the tragic death of two children in a Loon Lake house fire, Cochin resident Tyrone Bird used his frustration to fuel invention, creating portable, community-operated fire caddies, which have already saved lives.

Through his company, Firebird Mobile Fire Caddies, multiple First Nations communities now provide emergency fire response with affordable technology that is tailored to meet their needs — the caddies fit on a truck bed, hold an hour’s worth of water, and can be refilled in 10 minutes from local water sources like rivers and streams.

The expansion of local fire services has also created new jobs that support community economies and self-determination.

Indigenous innovation can support Saskatchewan and Canada, to effectively meet the most pressing challenges we face.

However, Indigenous leadership in technology and innovation is being stifled by lack of opportunity across the sector.

The tech industry in saskatchewan is booming, contributing an estimated $4.7 billion to provincial coffers in 2018 alone.

Growing by nearly 40 percent since 2010, according to a recent SaskInteractive report, the tech sector is generating sustained economic opportunities for the province and its people. These opportunities, however, are not equally accessible to all. Many studies, including the Brookfield Institute’s report Who Are Canada’s Tech Workers?, have shown that Indigenous people continue to be underrepresented and underpaid.

Provincial Viewpoint

Murray Mandryk

The reaction to job action by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union of Canada (ILWUC) strike at West Coast ports has been predictable.

Both business and politicians — particularly conservative politicians on the prairies — are clamouring for the federal to recall Parliament and introduce back-to-work

With nearly half of the Indigenous population in Saskatchewan under the age of 25, it is to everyone’s benefit to ensure they are equipped with skills to thrive today and in the workforce of the future.

Take pawâcikêwikamik, an innovation collective supported by the Oyateki Partnership, a unique collaboration between the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology (SIIT), the Gabriel Dumont Institute, the University of Saskatchewan and the Mastercard Foundation.

With local, provincial and national partners, pawâcikêwikamik hosts Indigenous-designed programs that support youth to gain training, skills and experience for meaningful careers in tech and innovation.

A few examples include a five-month entrepreneurship certificate program, access to micro-grants, immersive innovation camps for youth in community, access to leadingedge technology and tools, and wrap-around support to help students with life essentials.

In this way, pawâcikêwikamik is an ecosystembuilding initiative with the potential to be a model for other educational and entrepreneurial communities, not just within Saskatchewan but across the country.

Indigenous young people have access to community-focused networks that enhance their net worth, including access to Elders, peers and allies who can help unlock the potential needed to merge technology and innovation with Indigenous knowledge.

Saskatchewan is facing a tremendous opportunity.

With a thriving tech sector, a shortage of workers and a pool of qualified and ambitious Indigenous tal- ent, the province can chart its path forward to honour its treaty responsibilities and lead the country in economic reconciliation.

Indigenous people are best suited to solve the complex problems the province’s communities face and can contribute meaningfully to the challenges that lie ahead for Canada.

Now is the time to make good on our treaties and

Port strike both a local and national issue

legislation. Many have become numb to the noise, but they shouldn’t be.

This is an economic issue of both national and local significance. And such issues quickly become ones of national unity.

The 7,500 workers walking off the job Prince George and Vancouver walking off the job on July 1st has already cost the country’s economy billions of dollars.

In this province, Nutrien Ltd. has announced there will layoffs at the Cory potash mine.

What’s happening 1,700 kilometres to the west of us is going to have a profound impact on us in landlocked Saskatchewan that relies on getting our agriculture, oil, mining and forestry products to port.

When prairie goods don’t move to the coast because of either rail disruptions or port strikes, it, in turn, hurts our ability to generate the tax dollars and other revenue we need to keep our hospitals and schools open.

It may seem like prioritizing local issue but it’s more than that … not that there’s anything wrong with keeping a local perspective, anyway.

One of the biggest problems we are having in this social media/internet age is that people aren’t invested enough in local issues.

Whether your neighbour working at the potash mine loses his job or whether a farmer can get his grains, oilseed and pulses delivered to Asian markets should be all our concerns. Isn’t “supply chain” been one of the buzz phases since the pandemic?

While there are many problems in this Internet/ social media, the ability to be aware of things happening 1,700 kilometres to the west of us affects us, locally, is a good thing. Unfortunately, one of the big problems with Internet/social media age is that it reinforces people’s commitment to their own world view rather than that of their community. Consider how many people either directly attached to provincial labour movement or simply working under a unionized agreement seem perhaps more sympathetic to the striking ILWUC member that others may be.

This is not to say that the ILWUC doesn’t have legitimate grievances with their own employers or that they shouldn’t have a legal right to strike.

However, it is a rather myopic view of the world when you can discount work together for peace, prosperity and the mutual benefit of all. And this is, and has always been, at the very heart of Indigenous innovation. what’s happening to your neighbour because you view yourself as a supporter of labour. After all, those workers at the Cory potash mine are unionized workers, too.

Riel Bellegarde is the president and CEO at the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies and Jennifer Brennan is the director of Canada Programs at the Mastercard Foundation.

Labour and left have been busily arguing both Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith supporter the disrupting and illegal COVID-19 restriction border protesters including those in Coutts, Alta. now facing serious Criminal Code charges. Obviously, the conservative politicians were dead wrong to egg on such illegal activity. However, you really can’t compared those past disruptions with the economic damage with the national and local economic damage created by a long-term port strike.

That said, it’s also in the political interests of con- servative politicians to vilify the West Coast longshoreman who want a fair deal to feed their own families.

So what’s the solution?

Well, the coast-to-coast movement of products as a national issue.

The national ports should be viewed as an essential national service. We need a system where binding arbitration more easily kicks in to avoid such shutdowns.

Surely, we re-learned the importance of this during COVID-19 when we became reacquainted with the importance of the trucking industry.

More over, historically speaking, we only became nation when we became connected from sea to sea by rail.

Commerce ties us together. As such, local issues have always been national issues.

Coyote Chasers

found out why!

Anytime of the year, rain or shine, suddenly our phone would ring and one of the neighbours excitedly would announce that a coyote was crossing their field. Everything stopped as guys leapt for their small trucks, shotguns in hand and roared off on “The Chase”.

Notable Notes

Bob Mason

I never really got interested in chasing anything when I was young - not even pretty girls - and after we came back from overseas we were sure prepared to accept the quiet life out here on the lone prairie.

But all that changed in a hurry!

As young fellows we had always wondered why a group of crazy horsemen and hounds would chase an innocent fox across fields and over hedges, dogs yelping and people shouting, “Tally Ho!” and all that stuff. We sure

Of course, being the conservative types - as mentioned above - we never really shared in a lot of this enthusiasm, although sometimes we went along.

The war might have been kind of unhealthy in a way but looking back I think that surviving one of those coyote hunts was an even greater achievement!

Example: Everyone knows that a coyote has quite a sense of humour, and maybe it was this kind of thing that urged those hunters on to try and out-better them!

It was just such a thing that darn near did us in while we were chasing a coyote south of Kinley.

Chef Dez on cooking

Chef Dez

How well do you know your local butcher, baker, or candlestick maker? I realize that local candlestick makers are less prevalent than they use to be, but if you had one in your community they would be just as important as your other local merchants. We have all heard that shopping local is important to the economy and the environment, but do we know exactly why? The tentacles of this decision, to keep your money in the community spread out farther, and reap more benefits, than you can ever imagine.

Spending money at local businesses will keep more money in the communities we reside in. Firstly, this happens by maintaining the existing employment of their workers and, with growth, creating new jobs. Employment levels are always a key factor in the economic evaluations of any territory under scrutiny. Secondly, there is a good chance that businesses employ people that reside in the same commu-

One of the neighbours drove into our yard and said, “There’s a coyote running across my field! Let’s go!”

Bill grabbed the shotgun and we leapt into the back of Reg’s old halfton.

Reg roared up and down, back and forth, trying to get near enough to get a shot away but that damn coyote kept running along just out of range.

Finally it trotted over the main road into the field on the other side, sat down, looked at us and started to laugh!

This was years ago in the days of the old municipal elevating grader which cut a three-foot ditch beside the road to elevate earth up onto it, but there was no back slope at all. Apparently the laugh of that coyote was too much for Reg to take. He headed the truck over to cross that ditch corner and “put ‘er to the floor!”

Bill and Yours Truly had been standing in the back when we hit that bump. I don’t know how come we didn’t get hurt, but when the truck finally stopped bouncing we got up off the floor.

There we sat in the middle of the road. The truck - which was quite a bit older - had stopped and we just stood there and looked. The coyote had just sat and watched it all, but now gave us a very disdainful look and trotted away!

“Tally Ho!” and all that!

This kind of stuff may seem a bit crazy to many readers but after seeing that “dumb animal” sit there and sneer at its chasers, I can sure understand!

About that same year I was sowing my crop when I had to stop and move my page-wire fence out of the way. The fine heavy fence with two barb wire on top, had exploded some time during the winter. A couple of fence posts with the wire attached were spread on each side of where it was broken, and yet there were no tracks. First of all, I had terri-