On the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, federal employees had the day off work and many Ottawans gathered in a variety of memorials and ceremonies around the city. But reconciliation will require more than just a day of reflection – for the business community in Ottawa, it must include more cohesive and holistic solutions to the challenges faced by Indigenous business owners, from a lack of resources to living with trauma from the residential school system, says serial entrepreneur and business advisor Hazel Harrison.
Hazel Harrison, 51, was born in Inuvik, a town in what is now called the Northwest Territories, and is Inuvialuit, of the Inuit people of the Western Arctic. She is a certified business advisor who often works with Indigenous business owners, and in her experiences working with mostly Indigenous women entrepreneurs, resources seem to be falling short.
A self-described serial entrepreneur, Harrison is the CEO and founder of Smart Addiction Technologies, an app designed to help users quit smoking and vaping, and has worked as a business advisor with Wilfrid Laurier’s Women Entrepreneurship Centre (WEC); Women of Ontario Social Enterprise Network (WOSEN); Centre for Social Innovation (CSI); Alberta Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) and Invest Ottawa. In her career, she has started a total of six businesses.
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The Ottawa business world can be an unfamiliar challenge for Indigenous entrepreneurs, she said.
For example, technology has posed a challenge to many entrepreneurs who live in remote communities, without access to reliable tech support or internet, or to business owners who are less experienced with technological solutions, said Harrison.
“Before COVID, I had used video conferencing maybe once or twice and during the pandemic, it sped up our use of technology so much,” she said. “Now everyone just expects you to use it, and many Indigenous business owners aren’t familiar with it and it makes them feel inadequate.”
As an advisor, Harrison said she works with many Indigenous artists and is hearing that many have trouble getting decent protection on their work. Many are putting out art and products, and a week later their work has been copied and resold online.
“Due to the remoteness of a lot of the Indigenous communities, they don’t have access to all the services.”
To mark the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation last year, the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce said Ottawa must “commit to reconciliation every single day.”
“Indigenous Peoples make up the fastest-growing population in Canada and continue to face systemic barriers to their economic and social well-being,” said Rocco Rossi, president and CEO of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, in a statement today. “Every sector has a role to play in advancing Truth and Reconciliation and ensuring equitable outcomes across the country.”
Indigenous entrepreneurs also often experience what Harrison calls “the lag” or “the gap”, which refers to a lack of role models and mentors in business.
“A lot of non-Indigenous business owners grew up with their parents being lawyers, accountants, business owners, and doctors, so they’re familiar with the business world, but a lot of Indigenous people grew up on the land, so they don’t quite have those same role models,” said Harrison. “We learn by watching our parents do what they do, so I watched my father hunt and trap.”
Born the second-youngest to a family of 18, Harrison moved out on her own and joined the workforce at 12 years old and attended university with only a grade six education. When Harrison began designing her app, she said “there was nobody I could turn to for help in my community because no one I knew had ever created a smartphone app before.”
She did learn a lot from her father, Harry, though, that has guided, motivated and inspired her in the business world.
“When you come from absolutely nothing, you know that you don’t have anything to lose. It’s really easy to start out that way,” said Harrison. “Watching your father check his traps in 40 below, you know you can do so much.”
“Everything else in life comes very easy because it’s easier than his,” she explained. “I’m grateful I didn’t have to work as hard as he did. And he was stubborn, he never gave up, and he kept doing what he had to do to keep his family safe.”
Another issue that Harrison said she sees entrepreneurs face is with the financial programs and grants available.
“There are lots of programs, but they expect you to be up and running and already successful,” said Harrison. So many business owners, she said, need the early guidance to get off the ground.
But she says resources for Indigenous entrepreneurs also need to look at the individual more holistically, rather than just offering funds.
In a statement on Friday, Sueling Ching, president and CEO of the Ottawa Board of Trade, wrote to “encourage business owners in Ottawa to take part in these important learning opportunities and reflect on the local and national history that continues to shape the experiences of Indigenous Peoples across Canada.”
The statement also outlined Call to Action 92 from the The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which calls on businesses to advance economic reconciliation and Indigenous economic inclusion by: building meaningful, respectful relationships with Indigenous Peoples; Ensuring equitable employment and economic development opportunities for Indigenous communities; and Providing skills-based staff training in intercultural competency and anti-racism.
“One of the biggest challenges facing Indigenous business owners is a lack of confidence,” Harrison said. “It’s difficult to have confidence when you don’t have money and you’re dealing with PTSD.”
“Every single one of your Indigenous friends is either a residential school survivor or is a child or a grandchild of one, or they are all three,” she explained. “Therefore, it’s quite possible that every single Indigenous person here in Canada is living with PTSD.”
Of her 16 siblings, 12 were in the residential school system, said Harrison. So was her mother, and her maternal grandmother. While she wanted to protect her siblings’ privacy, Harrison did say that while they all returned home from the schools, they “were not the same as they left.”
Her voice breaking, Harrison said she told her own daughter this morning that it was “painful for my parents to have their children taken away, one by one, as they got school age.”
For business owners and entrepreneurs living with PTSD, which can include symptoms like flashbacks, intrusive memories, anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts, resources for business owners must be multifaceted to include financial support that go hand-in-hand with mental health and PTSD assistance.
“Every single one of your Indigenous friends is either a residential school survivor or is a child or a grandchild of one, or they are all three. Therefore, it’s quite possible that every single Indigenous person here in Canada is living with PTSD.”
“The decision-makers aren’t doing the research that is needed, they go in thinking they know what people need and expecting people to know what they want,” explained Harrison, “But when they don’t know what is out there, it’s hard to give a good answer.”
On the path to reconciliation, the first step is truth, says Harrison. With only one Indigenous business mentor, only a grade six education, and generations of inherited trauma, Harrison succeeded against all odds and built a thriving career in business. But resources for entrepreneurs are falling short, and they need to start with the truth of colonialism’s impact on the business owners as individuals with multilayered struggles.
“We need to look at the individual holistically. They need help in one area as well as others,” she said. “Knowing what the challenge is is one thing but society needs to focus on getting to know Indigenous people and what we’ve endured so we can all work together, help each other and move forward together.”
The Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business provides a cohesive directory of many Indigenous-owned businesses in Canada here.
