It’s hard enough to start a business, but young Indigenous entrepreneurs face an even more uphill battle because of a systemic digital gap that’s holding them back — along with Canada’s entire economy.
That’s the main takeaway from a new report by RBC, after spending the last 18 months analyzing economic data and talking with Indigenous stakeholders about how to unlock and maximize their economic potential.
The report includes findings from online surveys of 2,000 Indigenous youth who agreed to participate in the bank’s Future Launch initiative, a 10-year, $500-million bank-funded initiative to help prepare young people for the jobs of tomorrow.
The Indigenous youth population in Canada is growing at a pace four times faster than the rest of the country’s youth, the report says, and Indigenous people create new businesses at nine times the Canadian average.
And while Indigenous entrepreneurs are a vast and growing cohort, a big reason they remain a largely untapped resource is a yawning digital divide.
Missed opportunity
It’s something that Edmonton-based business owner Mallory Yawnghwe knows firsthand. Growing up in Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, she never saw the online world as a career opportunity because digital infrastructure in her community was so poor.
Last year, the federal government promised to make sure 98 per cent of the country has access to high-speed internet within five years. Despite that commitment, the report says more than three-quarters of households in First Nations communities don’t have it.
In a global economy that’s moving more and more online, that’s holding them back.
“I come from a reserve where we have very poor internet access,” Yawnghwe said in an interview. “To this day … literally you can’t get internet out there unless you have a connection to a Wi-Fi source, which a lot of people don’t have.”
It wasn’t until she got a business degree from MacEwan University in Edmonton that she saw the economic potential of being digitally connected.
Fast forward to 2020, the pandemic gave her an unexpected chance to fulfil her passion to elevate her community.
Using her digital skills, she reached out to other Indigenous business owners about selling their products packaged together with other Indigenous-made items, from beauty products, to food, to housewares.
Indigenous Box was born — and it’s growing quickly. Launched in the spring of 2021 with a plan to ship four seasonal boxes a year, Yawnghwe says her customer base has already quadrupled and is now in the thousands.
“I see it as an opportunity to really shine some light on just what amazing things Indigenous entrepreneurs are doing,” she said.
Keith Matthew, director of the Tulo Centre for Indigenous Economics at Thompson Rivers University in B.C., says he sees those impacts himself all the time.
A former councillor and chief of the Simpcw First Nation, about an hour north of Kamloops, B.C., Matthew says that less than 20 years ago, the community was relying on dozens of unreliable and expensive dial-up internet connections.
In 2007, the local council decided to spend $175,000 to set up a fibre-optic connection, and Matthew says it was the best investment they ever made.
WATCH | How high speed Internet has been a life saver during COVID-19:
Keith Matthew of the Simpcw First Nation near Kamloops says high speed internet has been a life saver for his community, especially during the pandemic. 0:38
“If we didn’t have that connection, a lot of young people would not have [what] they need to advance their careers,” he said in an interview.
Two-thirds of jobs currently held by Indigenous workers in Canada are in danger of either being eliminated or drastically changed by technology, according to the RBC report.
Remote and rural communities are especially in danger because of the infrastructure gap, Matthew said. “Young people get left further and further behind [and] it exacerbates the issue of young people leaving.”
Julie Nagam says that when you give people access to digital tools they didn’t have before, there’s no telling what they will come up with — and the rewards are often great. (Lenard Monkman/CBC)
The advantages of being digitally connected are vast — and they often pay off in ways you don’t expect, says Julie Nagam, director of the Winnipeg-based Aabijijiwan New Media Lab. The recently opened lab provides access to basic web tools, such as computers for sound and video editing work, all the way up to complex tasks, like 3D printing and computer animation.
When you give someone access to creative digital tools they didn’t have before, “the sky’s the limit,” said Nagam. “That provides people the opportunity to dream, to think about what’s the potential, the future and where they can push it.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen until people actually have access to that,” she said. “It provides people with new opportunities and new potential training and job opportunities.”
But it’s not just skills and infrastructure that can pose a problem. The report found there’s a systemic bias at play that robs Indigenous entrepreneurs of one of their secret weapons: Confidence.
While the young people surveyed were very confident on the whole in their problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration and creative skills, they were 13 per cent less likely to describe themselves as having enough digital skills to thrive.
That makes sense to Yawnghwe. “Throughout my life I felt I tried to not feel discouraged by racism, by discrimination, by people thinking that I wasn’t smart enough to be in these spaces,” she said.
Those biased assumptions play out in unequal access to funding from banks. As the RBC report acknowledges, Indigenous people “face structural and systemic barriers to financial security, from restrictions under the Indian Act on asset ownership, to racial bias of lenders.”
RBC tabulates that the Indigenous economy in Canada is currently worth about $33 billion, but growing it to a level proportionate to its population would triple that amount.
That’s almost $70 billion worth of new money for local communities — and Canada’s economy as a whole.
For Yawnghwe, it’d be an especially welcome sight to see.
“We’re natural entrepreneurs,” she said. “We are the original supply chain of this entire continent, with a trade network that spanned the entire continent prior to colonization. We are just stepping back into these spaces.”
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VICTORIA – British Columbia is forecasting a record budget deficit and a rising debt of almost $129 billion less than two weeks before the start of a provincial election campaign where economic stability and future progress are expected to be major issues.
Finance Minister Katrine Conroy, who has announced her retirement and will not seek re-election in the Oct. 19 vote, said Tuesday her final budget update as minister predicts a deficit of $8.9 billion, up $1.1 billion from a forecast she made earlier this year.
Conroy said she acknowledges “challenges” facing B.C., including three consecutive deficit budgets, but expected improved economic growth where the province will start to “turn a corner.”
The $8.9 billion deficit forecast for 2024-2025 is followed by annual deficit projections of $6.7 billion and $6.1 billion in 2026-2027, Conroy said at a news conference outlining the government’s first quarterly financial update.
Conroy said lower corporate income tax and natural resource revenues and the increased cost of fighting wildfires have had some of the largest impacts on the budget.
“I want to acknowledge the economic uncertainties,” she said. “While global inflation is showing signs of easing and we’ve seen cuts to the Bank of Canada interest rates, we know that the challenges are not over.”
Conroy said wildfire response costs are expected to total $886 million this year, more than $650 million higher than originally forecast.
Corporate income tax revenue is forecast to be $638 million lower as a result of federal government updates and natural resource revenues are down $299 million due to lower prices for natural gas, lumber and electricity, she said.
Debt-servicing costs are also forecast to be $344 million higher due to the larger debt balance, the current interest rate and accelerated borrowing to ensure services and capital projects are maintained through the province’s election period, said Conroy.
B.C.’s economic growth is expected to strengthen over the next three years, but the timing of a return to a balanced budget will fall to another minister, said Conroy, who was addressing what likely would be her last news conference as Minister of Finance.
The election is expected to be called on Sept. 21, with the vote set for Oct. 19.
“While we are a strong province, people are facing challenges,” she said. “We have never shied away from taking those challenges head on, because we want to keep British Columbians secure and help them build good lives now and for the long term. With the investments we’re making and the actions we’re taking to support people and build a stronger economy, we’ve started to turn a corner.”
Premier David Eby said before the fiscal forecast was released Tuesday that the New Democrat government remains committed to providing services and supports for people in British Columbia and cuts are not on his agenda.
Eby said people have been hurt by high interest costs and the province is facing budget pressures connected to low resource prices, high wildfire costs and struggling global economies.
The premier said that now is not the time to reduce supports and services for people.
Last month’s year-end report for the 2023-2024 budget saw the province post a budget deficit of $5.035 billion, down from the previous forecast of $5.9 billion.
Eby said he expects government financial priorities to become a major issue during the upcoming election, with the NDP pledging to continue to fund services and the B.C. Conservatives looking to make cuts.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the debt would be going up to more than $129 billion. In fact, it will be almost $129 billion.
NANAIMO, B.C. – Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says he’ll be advising the Liberal party to flip some the challenges posed by an increasingly divided and dangerous world into an economic opportunity for Canada.
But he won’t say what his specific advice will be on economic issues that are politically divisive in Canada, like the carbon tax.
He presented his vision for the Liberals’ economic policy at the party’s caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C. today, after he agreed to help the party prepare for the next election as chair of a Liberal task force on economic growth.
Carney has been touted as a possible leadership contender to replace Justin Trudeau, who has said he has tried to coax Carney into politics for years.
Carney says if the prime minister asks him to do something he will do it to the best of his ability, but won’t elaborate on whether the new adviser role could lead to him adding his name to a ballot in the next election.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she has been taking advice from Carney for years, and that his new position won’t infringe on her role.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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