PAR continues to grow in depth and scope

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After three years of operation, the Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR) program continues to broaden its membership, as more and more companies that want to establish good relationships with the Aboriginal community join the program.

Now, there are 20 companies involved, which provides member businesses with a framework within which they can set goals for improving relations with the Aboriginal community while giving them the tools to gauge their success.

The program helps member companies assess their efforts in four areas-employment, business development, individual capacity development and community relations. Members come into the program at the commitment level, and once completing the assessment process, are placed at either a bronze, silver or gold achievement level.

Among the companies currently involved in the program are five that have just come on board within the past year. Newcomers Veco, Pitblado Barristers and Solicitors, and Compass Group Canada have all come in at the commitment level, while Place Louis Riel All-Suite Hotel completed the assessment and placed at the gold level.

In addition to adding new members, the program has also seen some upward movement among its existing membership. Xerox Canada, one of the companies involved in the initial PAR pilot project in 2000, recently moved from a bronze standing to a silver standing, while Sodexho moved from bronze level to gold. And Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries, which was at the commitment level last year, has completed the assessment process and placed at the silver level.

Other PAR members include Cameco and Syncrude, who like Place Louis Riel, also placed at the gold level with their first assessment application. Donna Cona sits at the silver level. Casino Rama, BP, Piruqsijit Ltd. and Pharmacia, E-Tronics Inc., Domtar, Canada Post, Junior Achievement Canada and Scotiabank are all at the commitment level.

Jocelyne Soulodre is president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business, which co-ordinates the PAR program. Seeing the growth the program has achieved since its inception is "really gratifying," she said.

She is also encouraged by the growing diversity of the companies getting involved in PAR. In the past year, the program has welcomed its first law firm, and its first hotel.

"I am really happy about the diverse number of companies that are in the program in terms of the industry sectors that they're from. Because when we designed the program, we did the best we could, but we wanted it to be applicable to both small and large companies, companies that essentially operate in a pretty limited geographic sphere, as well as companies that were across Canada. And we also tried to make it suitable to Native and non-Native companies. So I think if you look at the mix we've got now, it sort of shows that the program has been able, so far anyway, to conform to a large variety of companies."

While the number of non-Native companies involved in PAR currently outstrips the number of Native companies-of the current members, only Casino Rama and Donna Cona are Aboriginal owned and operated-the PAR program has more to offer Aboriginal communities than just program membership, Soulodre explained.

"It's not just that Aboriginal companies could get into PAR, but just as importantly, what we see happening is for communities to use PAR when they're negotiating with companies, to do some memorandum of understanding or letter of intent. PAR very much can be a sort of a checklist for those companies. You know, if there's a big mining company, let's say, that wants to come in and do a project, PAR then becomes very useful for the community to say back to that company, 'All right, well, what are you going to do in terms of employment of our people? What are you going to do in terms of hiring Aboriginal suppliers and contractors?' So all of the categories that, let's say, a mainstream company would use, and answer questions to, the fliped coin of it or the mirror image is that Aboriginal communities themselves can use exactly those concepts to negotiate with the companies that want to come and do projects."

The companies that have joined the program so far, Soulodre explained, are a mix between those that have been working to create good Aboriginal relations for years, and those that are just getting started.

"I think there's both in the program. By and large the ones for which it's a pretty new kind of activity or approach, by and large those are at the commitment level. But certainly if you look at the companies that are in gold right now . . . two of them are essentially resource companies, Cameco and Syncrude, so they're doing business sort of on Aboriginal land, by and large. Sodexho is a company. They're remote sites division has a lot of business up north again, so a lot of their potential customers or employees are Native people. And Place Louis Riel is a hotel that, for a long time now, has been positioning itself as a nice place for Aboriginal people to come and stay when they come to Winnipeg. So I think that each of them in their own ways has been working with the community for a long time. And I think doing pretty well at it," she said.

"The thing about the PAR program is that it's so generic that companies can really make it their own . . . it doesn't say this is the only way to do it, it says this is one of the ways that you should do it," Soulodre said.

"You're not comparing yourself to another company, and you're also not having to meet any sort of externally imposed restraints or targets. It's really about you deciding what you want to do in terms of your Aboriginal relations, and then working to get there."