Reconciliation and economic partnerships are the key themes of a Saskatoon conference that runs May 2-3.
The Intersections for Growth Conference brings a number of stakeholders together to discuss ways to better engage Indigenous people in the provincial economy.
Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark says a recent hydro project between the city and the Saskatoon Tribal Council is a good example of one such partnership.
“We wanted to sort of kick it off in a way that didn’t just follow the conventional steps of approving it at city council and having a signing without incorporating some of the Indigenous ceremony and protocol,” said Clark.
The Saskatoon mayor says these Indigenous protocols included a water ceremony that had a sweat and pipe ceremonies as parts of it.
Jim Puffalt of the City of North Battleford adds the economic partnership between this city and the Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs has also seen positive results.
“We’ve just moved into a joint Indigenous employment strategy, where we’re trying to be a representative workforce at the City of North Battleford itself,” he said. “We wanted to show to the community that working with our partners can make a huge difference for everybody.”
Puffalt says as part of this program, eight Indigenous employees were hired by North Battleford, and five have been kept on as seasonal employees.
University of Manitoba Professor Barry Prentice gave a presentation Wednesday afternoon on how airships could significantly reduce the high cost of transporting food supplies to northern Saskatchewan.
Prentice says airships are simply a much more cost-effective way to transport large volumes of goods to remote communities compared to airplanes.
“We believe an airship can do this (move goods) at half the cost on an airplane,” he said. “So instead of the cost of $2 per kilogram, we can cut this to $1 per kilogram to move goods in.”
Prentice says this is because airships can typically carry much larger volumes of goods than airplanes, which in turn significantly reduces transportation costs.
He says the technology does exist to get fleets of airships operating throughout northern Canada, but the main obstacles are government buy-in and investment.
A 15 tonne airship costs about $30 million to build.
The two-day Intersections for Growth Conference winds up on Thursday.
(PHOTO: Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark. Photo courtesy of Fraser Needham.)