Corporate declaration of action takes flight

Businesses pledging to support reconciliation will meet in Assiniboine Park today as a national project launches.

Victoria Grant plans to attend. She’s been working on this nationwide corporate declaration of action for years — skipping Wednesday morning’s event in Winnipeg means missing launch time.

The private-sector-led declaration will gain its first signees during a ceremony, running from 10 a.m. to noon in the Pavilion.

Signatories agree to learn about the past, build cultural awareness, support Indigenous entrepreneurs and incorporate reconciliation into their corporate policies, among other things.

The document will be presented to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which is based in Winnipeg.

“I’m going into this with great anticipation and some trepidation,” Grant said.

She heads Moving Red Canoe, a professional services firm, and has spent decades working with Indigenous organizations on reconciliation. She was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2021.

For the past couple years, Grant has liaised with businesses across the country, in sectors spanning mining to accounting. She gathered feedback on private-sector interest in a corporate declaration of action; she then brought the notes to a leadership circle for the project’s development.

The group — made up of roughly a dozen entities — included international insurance and technology firms, and Indigenous leaders, among others. Community Foundations of Canada is involved.

Private-sector membership will be unveiled at Wednesday’s event.

“It’s been a process — a very thoughtful, meaningful process,” said Bruce Miller, who is part of the leadership circle and is creating a national fund to support Indigenous participation in sports.

The declaration is borne from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 92nd call to action — it encourages corporate Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework.

Firms will be able to sign the new declaration online. Organizers are finishing the website, Grant noted.

They’ll keep in contact with signatories and will likely distribute surveys, she said. The group is still finalizing methods of tracking change.

They’ll look at national numbers, Grant said.

“Think of this more as creating a movement to support all of the other events … and create awareness,” she said. “How many times have you heard, ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

“This is a way of being that model and also being able to talk to each other.”

Grant said she’ll monitor Indigenous employment, among other things.

“The commitment demonstrated by organizations signing the declaration has never been more important,” Stephanie Scott, the National Centre of Truth and Reconciliation’s executive director, wrote in a statement.

Scott highlighted residential school denialism.

“In a time when truth is increasingly challenged and distorted, the need for trusted institutions and leaders to uphold, preserve, and share the historical record has never been greater,” Scott wrote.

Corporate leadership plays “an important role” in the work, Scott added, including through creating job opportunities for Indigenous people and by investing in workplace education on residential schools and colonial policies.

Businesses can attend today’s launch event by registering at corporatedeclaration.ca. The website includes details about what’s involved in the corporate declaration.

Grant said she’s aiming for 200 signatures in a year.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com