Entrepreneur Rob Tebb can see his company becoming bigger — a lot bigger.
“The opportunity is there to just grow this business to four or five times the size that it is,” he said.
Tebb, who is Métis, owns Regina-based Xtended Hydraulics & Machine with his wife, Katherine. More than half their staff of 26 is Indigenous.
The high-tech company makes specialized parts, mostly for mining companies, and has just broken into a new market: the defence industry. It’s a moment the Tebbs have been working toward for years.
Like many Indigenous business leaders, Tebb said he feels a wave of economic development and business opportunity is rolling across the country.
This week, that wave officially surged into Toronto at a conference called Indigenomics on Bay Street, which brought together a mix of government, corporate and Indigenous leaders.
All were focused on growing the Indigenous economy in Canada to $100 billion a year and marking the paths to make the goal a reality.
Carol Anne Hilton, the event’s organizer and founder of the Indigenomics Institute, said putting Bay Street into the conference name is an “invitation for corporate Canada to respond” and to learn “about the strategic advantage of working with Indigenous people.”
WATCH | This Indigenous-owned business sees ‘huge’ opportunity ahead:
This Indigenous-owned business sees ‘huge’ opportunity ahead
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Featured VideoRob Tebb, co-owner of Regina-based Xtended Hydraulics & Machine, says about half his current team members are Indigenous — and he sees more opportunities for growth and training ahead.
What is ‘Indigenomics’?
“Indigenomics” is “economics from an Indigenous worldview,” Hilton said, adding that she invented the word before writing a book on the subject.
It’s about taking a “constructive, generative” approach to economic growth for Indigenous communities, she said, in order to establish “the systemic inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in today’s modern economy.”
Hilton, a member of Hesquiaht First Nation in British Columbia, said she believes it’s an antidote to the historical injustice of their exclusion from the economy through discrimination, laws like the Indian Act and Canada’s system of reserves.
Indigenomics on Bay Street is the ninth Indigenous business event she’s organized since 2019, but it’s her first in the country’s financial capital.
The $100-billion question
The Indigenous contribution to Canada’s economy is on an upward trend, with the latest data putting the value at almost $50 billion in 2020.
Hilton is among Indigenous business leaders who say the Indigenous economy in Canada is on the way to reaching $100 billion a year, double its value in 2020. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
“If we look at Indigenous Peoples as being generative of five per cent of Canada’s economic activity, that is looking directly at $100 billion,” she said.
But the number is also aspirational to provide Indigenous people with a “marker,” Hilton said, because “we need something to kind of propel us out of the status quo.”
So how quickly can the Indigenous economy grow from its current $50 billion to $100 billion?
Hilton and others believe the goal will be met within a few years.
At the conference in Toronto, panel discussions were organized around opportunities and strategies to drive economic growth, generate wealth and supply jobs.
Sessions on major infrastructure builds, clean energy projects, raising capital and procurement policies to support Indigenous suppliers were some of the key topics.
The power of procurement policies
In recent years, governments and companies have enacted supplier diversity policies, using their purchasing power as a tool for equity by creating business opportunities for minority groups to sell them goods and services.
Tabatha Bull, CEO of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB), said she believes procurement is a key part of hitting the $100-billion target. She led a procurement panel at the conference.
“If you think about the government, who spends around $20 billion annually, a five per cent commitment is a significant injection into the Indigenous economy,” Bull told CBC News.
Tabatha Bull, CEO of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, says procurement policies that ensure Indigenous businesses receive a certain value of contracts are a key part of reaching the $100-billion target. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Since 2018, the CCAB has run a program called Supply Change to help companies and organizations connect with Indigenous suppliers — and almost 150 companies have signed on.
Indigenous young people are a fast-growing demographic, Bull said, and First Nations entrepreneurs launch startups “at nine times the rate of non-Indigenous businesses.”
Bull, a member of Ontario’s Nipissing First Nation, said procurement policies that support Indigenous entrepreneurs help the broader economy.
Back in Regina, Rob Tebb said some companies’ Indigenous procurement policies don’t actually work as intended, but those developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities can make a big difference.
The CCAB introduced Tebb’s manufacturing business to its first defence industry client. Thanks to that defence company’s Indigenous procurement program, Tebb is making parts for a military vehicle.
He said he’s optimistic that more military jobs will come. “Once you get work from one defence company, now all the other ones see you as a qualified vendor,” he said.
Learning from First Nations in the U.S.
Bill Lomax, CEO of the First Nations Bank of Canada (FNBC), was another speaker at the conference in Toronto.
A member of the Gitxsan Nation in northwestern B.C., Lomax is among those who believes the Indigenous economy in Canada will reach $100 billion soon.
“It wouldn’t take that long for us to double or triple,” he said.
First Nations Bank of Canada CEO Bill Lomax is shown delivering his keynote address at the Indigenomics on Bay Street event in Toronto. He focused on lessons that First Nations in Canada can take from the success of some Indigenous communities in the U.S. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
In the United States, Lomax said, there are 30 to 40 First Nations with multibillion-dollar economies — and many others with economies that tally in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Over eight years with Goldman Sachs, he worked with American tribal nations managing a portfolio worth more than $2 billion.
His conference keynote address focused on a few lessons that First Nations in Canada can take from the success of some Indigenous communities south of the border.
Like the CCAB’s Bull, Lomax said he also believes procurement policies are an important driver of economic growth, but he said Indigenous communities in Canada should lean on the federal government to expand its spending to be on par with Indigenous procurement in the U.S.
Lomax also recommended that First Nations work to get into the gaming industry. In the U.S., gaming brought $41 billion to Indigenous communities last year, while casinos in Las Vegas took in only $8.3 billion, he said.
First Nations in Canada should also focus on the cannabis industry, he said, adding that increasing participation in natural resources projects, as well as the development of real estate and businesses on urban reserves, will drive growth.
The FNBC has expansion plans to support more communities and manage investments, and Lomax said he’s confident that “we’re going to see a lot of First Nations become economic powerhouses.”
The rising tide
André Le Dressay, director of the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., has worked with Indigenous communities and institutions on economic development for 30 years.
He told CBC News that “the potential of the Indigenous economy has certainly been undervalued” and that it’s “to the shame of Canada” that Indigenous people haven’t been engaged as full partners in the economy.
Tebb, co-owner of Xtended Hydraulics & Machine in Regina, said he can see this changing, and he imagines doubling his staff to fill new orders at his shop.
Rob Tebb is co-owner of Xtended Hydraulics & Machine in Regina. The high-tech company makes specialized parts, mostly for mining companies, and has just broken into the defence industry. (Mitchell Steffensen/Xtended Hydraulics and Machine)
“When I look back at the past, I see indigenous people left out of the economic fabric of our country, and now I see excitement and opportunities that I’ve never seen before,” he said.
“You can see it in the communities. There’s hope for a future.”
Carol Anne Hilton agrees. “I feel very much that this is a powerful time to be alive,” she said, “where Indigenous people are picking up business as a tool and using it as a stake in the ground to say we’re still here.”
A rising economic tide in Indigenous communities, she said, is good for the economy as a whole.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
