Northern Ambitions

A part of my job at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre is to procure heavy equipment needed to support our operations. Simply put, I coordinate the purchasing of different types of big machines that are used to move, sort, screen, mix, grind, or shred the thousands of tonnes of waste, compost and recycleables going through our site on a daily basis. Sometimes, the mobile equipment that we get from the dealers requires additional features which must be custom manufactured. One of the companies that has been doing this kind of work for us is Weldco-Beales.

This morning, I had the privilege of touring their impressive manufacturing complex. I saw a cool machine that blasts tiny steel beads against sheet steel, to remove unwanted residues and give it a velvety, matte finish, which makes it easier to weld. I also saw massive automated plasma and gas torch cutting tables, with cutting heads that zips around large panels of steel, releasing different shapes from it, as if they were stamped out by a giant cookie cutter. Keep in mind that some of the steel "cookie dough" is up to 4 inches thick. It is hard to believe that just a few decades ago, this kind of work would've been done manually, by workers holding gas torch cutters.

After the various pieces are cut or milled out by robotic lathes, they come together like a 3D puzzle, and the structure is temporarily held in place by numerous, short, discontinuous seams of tack welds. This technique of using the tack welds reminded me how a dressmaker uses pins to temporarily attach the panels of cut fabric together before running it under a sewing machine.

Anyways, I'm sharing this story not because of my secret passion for equipment manufacturing. I was just really surprised to find out who owned this excellent venture. It turns out Weldco-Beales belongs with a group of companies operating in northern Canada, all owned by the Norterra corporation. But Norterra is actually owned by the Canadian Inuit people through the Nunasi Corporation in Nunavut and the Inuvialuit Development Corporation (IDC) in the western Arctic.

On Norterra's webpage, it stated this vision: to create more meaningful participation in the Canadian and trans-Arctic economies for the people they represent; and their goal: to develop greater economic power and influence over their own region through business development in the infrastructure and transportation sectors. How intriguing! It's an Inuit crown corporation! Of course I wanted to know what else the Nunasi Corporation and the IDC owned, and I found that between the two entities, they owned (wholly or partially) nearly three dozen businesses, from mining, to oil and gas, to environmental consulting, to pharmacies, to travel.

The IDC, in particular, has been trading, selling, and investing for over 30 years, and currently boasts revenue and assets in the several hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why don't we ever hear about outstanding accomplishments such as these with respect to our fellow aboriginal Canadians? All that is ever publicized about are the insurmountable problems that plague their communities. Substance abuse, racism, gang violence, poor health, poor living conditions, victimization, broken families, etc. The prevalence of negative reporting perpetuates hurtful stereotypes, perceptions of inferiority, and acts to further erode cultural confidence and empowerment.

Now contrast this with what has been taking place in the Canadian North, where by the settled land claims with the Inuit have immensely improved their capacity to self-govern. These communities have proven to be quite capable of managing their own communities and finances. Not only that, their governments aren't afraid to carry out their own economic agendas and influence key industrial sectors by owning a piece of the pie. It also doesn't hurt that they using the profits gained to better the lives of their own people, the real beneficiaries. Typically corporate profits goes straight into the pockets of the CEOs and executives of multinational corporations, and other shareholders; all of whom are far removed from the communities or even countries in which their companies operate. They could care less about long-term sustainability and wealth-building for the local communities because they don't live there. In my opinion, it would serve our non-Aboriginal governments well to take a few lessons from the Inuit economic framework and business models.

Sources and hyperlinks used:

http://www.idc.inuvialuit.com/our-companies/
http://www.nunasi.com/aboutnunasi
http://www.nunasi.com/theme/user/NunasiBookEng.pdf
http://www.irc.inuvialuit.com/about/finalagreement.html