Cameco recognized for good Aboriginal relations

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Working closely with the Aboriginal community in northern Saskatchewan has always been a part of the way Cameco has done business. Now, the company's efforts have been recognized with receipt of a gold level achievement hallmark from the Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR) program.

The company received the recognition in Toronto Feb. 12 at the Circle for 2015 gala hosted by the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business (CCAB), the organization that runs the PAR program, joining with Syncrude in becoming the first two companies to earn the hallmark at that level.

PAR, now in its second year of operation, offers participating businesses a framework for setting objectives relating to Aboriginal relations, developing plans to meet those objectives, and measuring the results.

The program supports and measures its members achievements in four areas of Aboriginal relations - employment, business development, individual capacity development, and community relations.

The first step for a company wanting to get involved in the PAR program is submitting a statement of their intent to work towards developing respectful Aboriginal relations with Aboriginal individuals, communities and businesses. The company then become a PAR member at the commitment level, and can then begin setting goals and working toward those goals.

To move up from the commitment level to one of the achievement levels - bronze, silver or gold - a company must go through a self-assessment process, examining their successes in incorporating Aboriginal relations into their operations. The results of that self-assessment are then reviewed by the National Quality Institute (NQI) and an independent jury before a decision as to whether a PAR hallmark designation will be awarded and, if so, at what level.

"What it will do, over time, its our hope anyway, that the use of the PAR hallmark will instantly telegraph to Aboriginal communities that this is a company that takes it seriously, and that is doing a good job and wants to do a better job. And that they're interested in mutual win-win," explained Jocelyne Soulodre, president and CEO of the CCAB. "That's the ultimate goal, is for both sides to benefit. One in terms of the company being known, or more well known, for their attitude, and the fact that they take it seriously and that they want to be good corporate players. And on the other side, it's a way for Aboriginal communities to identify those companies that are really committed to changing things and making them better," she said.

Cameco's commitment to improve relationships with members of the Aboriginal community has existed longer than the company itself, explained Jamie McIntyre, Cameco's director of investor and corporate relations.

Cameco was formed through the merger of the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation, and Eldorado Nuclear, two crown corporations, one provincial and one federal, where Aboriginal relations initiatives had been part of both operations.

"But I think what happened when Cameco was formed, we just took them to a whole new level. And that was 1988 when Cameco was formed. From that time forward, we've been pretty committed to the essence of Aboriginal relationships ever since that time," McIntyre said.

He said receiving the PAR gold hallmark is "validating", because it recognized the quality of the relationship Cameco has with Aboriginal communities.

"It provides us some reassurance and validation that we're doing something that's important, and is being recognized by the larger community," he said.

"If you're committed to working with Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal people, to bring them into the mainstream of your business, you need to develop strategies in a whole variety of areas. Obviously, direct employment, that's a very important one. And direct business involvement through contracting and purchasing, that's a very important one as well. It obviously has an employment spin off as well.

"The other eally important one is education and post-secondary training. I think with Cameco, what really stands out perhaps is we have a sophisticated education and training program to bring more Aboriginal people into our work force in more substantial ways. We do everything from supporting public education, school based programs to try to encourage Aboriginal kids to stay in school, to sophisticated agreements with the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan to promote Aboriginal participation in mathematics and sciences at the university level. And everything in between. So that's a really important feature of the way we go about it," McIntyre said.

"And the fourth thing that both Syncrude and Cameco have that make us quite unique is we really have sophisticated methods in place to communicate and inform Aboriginal people about what we're doing, and why we're doing it. For example, we have an impact management agreement that's signed with seven Dene communities of the far north that deal with their issues and concerns, and set in place a method or a mechanism by which we can continue to communicate and solve their issues and concerns and make sure the people of the Athabasca region of the far north of Saskatchewan get to participate in mining opportunities that come available," he said.

The success of Cameco's initiatives bears out in the numbers. Aboriginal people currently make up about 45 per cent of Cameco's permanent operations workforce.

"I think we might have the highest percentage of Aboriginal involvement of any industrial employer in Canada. And now, the interesting news is Aboriginal people now cross all occupational groupings in our company. We've been at this for such a long time, that we have management and supervisors of Aboriginal ancestry, we have trades people, technicians. We have Aboriginal people represented across the whole range of occupations in our company. And what also is interesting to note is we're now hiring second generaton Aboriginal people. We're hiring the sons and daughters of our employees. So we've been at this a long time," he said.

"A lot of companies that look at Cameco from this perspective kind of envy us a little bit, that we've been able to accomplish so much. But the reality is that we've been at it a long time. And it takes time. To get the relationships in place, and to make sure that Aboriginal people are properly educated and skilled for the opportunities that you have.

You just don't manufacture an entrepreneur in northern Saskatchewan to provide the goods and services to your company; it takes time to grow those capabilities. Most northern Aboriginal communities don't have the kind of business capacity that we need, so it takes years to build competent, successful business people in northern Saskatchewan that can supply goods and services to us. So we now have suppliers in everything from, you name it - catering, trucking, construction services, aviation, you name it. We have northern entrepreneurs or businesses represented in just about the full profile of our contract services."

Over the years, Cameco has come up with a number of ways to help Aboriginal businesses to develop, from awarding them simple contracts to help get them off the ground, to partnering them with experienced business people so they can learn the ropes, to leasing equipment for them to use in their business.

"What we say is that Cameco's philosophy is that those people in communities that are most impacted by our operations should be the ones that benefit from them. Our operations are in northern Saskatchewan, it's predominantly Aboriginal - 75 per cent of the population is Aboriginal - and we believe that Aboriginal people must benefit from the opportunities that are created through our industry. It's pretty simple.

And as a matter of fact, it's an attitude we take everywhere, into our operations around the world. We have a large mine in central Asia, and we take the same philosophy, he same approach, the same management style, to central Asia, to Australia, to wherever we are. And the idea is to maximize benefits of our operations that local people receive. And the reasons for that are pretty obvious. You're asking for people to support your enterprise. And the only reason why they would support your enterprise is if they had an vested interest in the outcome. Today, that's what it's about. It's about relationships," McIntyre said.