"This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities. This week, she speaks with Fred Di Blasio, an Indigenous entrepreneur.
Is there a silver lining in Ottawa’s cloudy vision?
Indigenous entrepreneur Fred Di Blasio gives a qualified yes. He recently guided Squamish First Nation on the West Coast to build a 6,000-unit condo development in Vancouver. It’s one of Canada’s largest indigenous-owned projects. And now he’s launching Longhouse Capital Partners to skate circles around the Indian Act, an unnecessary encumbrance, he says, that gets in the way of economic opportunities for First Nations in Canada.
“Don’t look at reconciliation like another ‘woke’ term,” says Fred, “Look at it as an Indigenous renaissance.” That’s his advice to companies and pension plans across Canada, and anyone who may not fully understand what Canada’s endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) means. Last June, the Trudeau government unveiled a plan to implement UNDRIP in Canada; Longhouse aims to be a part of that roll-out.
Together with two other experienced Indigenous deal-makers — Bernd Christmas of the Membertou Band of Nova Scotia and Christian Sinclair of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba — Fred (of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Quebec) has set the wheels in motion for Longhouse to raise an initial $1 billion infrastructure fund to facilitate First Nations’ participation in utilities, renewable power, critical minerals, transportation and carbon capture projects across the country.
When I connect, virtually, with Fred in Vancouver, he’s effusive about the potential for corporate Canada to do business with Indigenous partners to help plug big infrastructure holes. Byzantine regulatory processes and ideologically bound activists are obviously slowing down the construction of critical projects — pipelines and affordable housing, to name but a few. But how, exactly, is partnering with a First Nations going to help a project proponent get around those barriers?
Leaning into the screen, hands clasped in front of him, this 55-year-old man has the power to hold an audience, including me. Fred’s worked his magic on Wall Street and Bay Street, in the telecoms business. For a few years, he and Hollywood celebrity Lana Parrilla were an “it couple” in Vancouver. Now, his partner is a Kurdish movie star; “Kurds are also tribal,” he chuckles.
Fred’s pitch goes like this: “What we see at Longhouse and what the Squamish have seen and what we can do in a more fulsome manner across the country, is really educate the corporate sector on the massive opportunity that the change in law with the ratification of UNDRIP in this country has created for Indigenous people but also for corporates.”
That’s a lot to unpack, but first, I need to understand the Senakw condo development currently under construction at the south end of the Burrard Bridge in Vancouver. The complex is being built on lands owned by the Squamish Nation. As such, it’s governed by federal, not municipal, rules. That means the condominium development isn’t subject to taxes, planning or development regulations that govern other homeowners in Metro Vancouver, including rules on maximum density and foreign-buyer taxes. The federal government — it’s promised a $1.4-billion loan via Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — hails the endeavour as “reconciliation in action.”
Under the Indian Act, the federal government deals with reserve lands and First Nations are in effect saying, “hey, we’re massively densifying and that’s good for all of us,” Fred asserts. There’s a certain irony in all this that causes me to pause. Yet it may be a tidy solution for what ails Canada.
I understand the reconciliation concept, but there has to be accountability. How can Longhouse be certain the economic development arms of individual Nations won’t get hamstrung by local politics? “I am always imploring First Nations and chiefs to ensure they get the governance structure right for their ec dev group,” Fred assures me. “That means separating the business of business and the business of politics. Those are two separate things.” Not an easy thing, I know from personal experience.
We take a deep dive into governance and Fred is convincing: As an Indigenous person, he’s got a better shot at navigating tribal politics. If that fails, it’s worth noting Fred and his partners have access to the clout of political heavyweights, including former federal cabinet minister Martin Cauchon and former B.C. premier Christy Clark.
Fred has a lot to say about the much vaunted federal government loan guarantee program for First Nations and reiterates his point: “Loan guarantees aren’t a panacea.” Loan guarantees are necessary and invaluable, he explains, and finite: “The government balance sheet has $1.4 trillion worth of debt on it. Even if it was at zero, you still couldn’t fund everything that needs to be funded. Trying to solve something just with government is a non-starter, from my perspective.”
And this is where Fred gets really animated; he shoots me a zinger. We can solve Canada’s housing crisis by transforming every single piece of land owned by First Nations to reserve land. It takes me a moment to fully appreciate what he’s saying.
Everyone wins, Fred asserts: “If you’re the average citizen and you get more rental units, that’s a win for everybody. If you’re a provincial or federal government and you are increasing housing supply, that’s a winner at the ballot box. If you’re a First Nation and you take your piece of land like we did at Senakw, guess what, you’ve got a sizeable, owned-source revenue.”
“Why not,” he asks, “it’s our land to begin with.”
By way of example, he points to the Jericho lands in Vancouver (owned jointly by a Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh partnership and Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corp.) and land outside Quebec City that’s to be sold by the Department of National Defence to the Huron-Wendat Nation.
Fred’s vision of economic reconciliation has the potential to flip the Indian Act on its head. “That’s exactly right,” Fred nods. But let’s do this methodically, he suggests, “in a way that doesn’t open Pandora’s Box, just yet.”
source:
How reconciliation can solve the housing crisis, and maybe flip the Indian Act on its head (msn.com)
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