Pabineau First Nation trading post balances tradition
and commerce
Recognition
Business owner honoured at Atlantic
Canada
Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Awards
Barbara Calderone celebrates an award honouring her business success with
Chief Everett Martin, left, David Peter-Paul, chief of the Pabineau First
Nation and her husband Joey Calderone. Barbara Calderone was honoured during the
second annual Atlantic Canada Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Awards, held at the
Membertou Trade and Convention Centre in Sydney, N.S.
________________________________________________________________
By Simon Cheung
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
________________________________________________________________________
BATHURST – Five years into running her own trading post, Barbara Calderone
had the opportunity to acquire a liquor license and along with it, tidy revenue
from alcohol sales. She turned it down.
"As a traditional person, I was not supposed to provide
that access. So I said ‘no’, even though it would have brought in a lot of
money," said Calderone, owner of Pabineau Pow Wow, a convenience store
selling Tandy leather, arts, crafts, groceries and computer supplies to the
local Pabineau First Nation community and visiting tourists.
"There’s a stigma that natives are just drunks and
welfare people," she added. "You have to over come that when you go
out to promote your business. When people hear ‘First Nations’ you have to
fight that stigma."
Calderone also nixed the possibility of developing a gaming
section in her store. She currently has three gambling machines, which she
monitors to make sure customers don’t lose too much money.
To develop her revenue, she has steadily grown her clientele
to include tourists and internet customers from throughout the United States and
as far away as Ecuador, Holland and Germany.
Calderone, who also provides craft supplies to First Nations
schools and sells her products internationally on her website, was honoured this
week with an award honouring her success during the second annual Atlantic
Canada Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Awards at the Membertou Trade and Convention
Centre in Sydney, N.S. She beat out six other competitors to nab the New
Brunswick provincial award and is currently in her 13th year of
running Pabineau Pow Wow.
Calderone said she hopes the recognition that the awards
garner will encourage young aboriginals in New Brunswick to educate themselves
so that they can make an impact in the province’s business community.
"It shows the generation coming up that we can break out
of this stigma that natives have no future – that welfare mentality, the
government-reliant mentality," she said. "You can still succeed in
life and make money without going against our teachings."
David Peter-Paul, chief of the Pabineau First Nation, said
that while aboriginal communities near city centres like Sydney and Truro in
Nova Scotia can do very well commercially, the geographical location of some
communities slows their economic development, he said, is critical if aboriginal
communities want to prosper.
Peter-Paul said a major obstacle used to be the simple fact
that aboriginal people did not tend to have the same corporate aspirations as
non-aboriginals.
"Some have become so accustomed to living with less,
that they don’t see that there can be a future with more than these
things," he said. "The biggest thing to be conquered in order for
corporate culture to become something that would feel natural to First Nations
people is a change of mindset."
But the times are changing. With more young aboriginals
entering higher education, he said – of the 230 band members in the Pabineau
First Nation, four graduated from the University of New Brunswick last year –
the communities could learn to embrace their culture while simultaneously
develop the skills, training and expertise to succeed in industry.
"As time goes by, we’ll have more and more and more
people working outside the community because they’re more educated, "said
Peter-Paul, who himself holds a degree from UNB. "There’s a trend in
terms of our communities developing their human resources capacities
quickly."
He said he has seen aboriginals under take projects in gaming
and aerospace in the past few years – ventures that would not have been
considered 30 years ago.
The challenge now, Peter-Paul said, is to try to keep money
and educated workers in their communities, instead of losing them to large city
centres.
"Education is something I’m really pushing for, but we
(also) have to crate more wealth in order to keep these university
graduates," he said.
Toward that end, Peter-Paul said the Pabineau First Nation
has brought its employment rate from 40 per cent to 100 per cent in recent years
through programs designed to create opportunities for workers of all skill sets.
"First Nation communities struggle with trying to find
the resources and revenues for resource development. We’re on fixed annual
budgets," said Anita Ward-Boyle, economic development officer for
Metepenagiag First Nation and winner of the economic development officer of the
year award.
Community funds are often used to provide community services
she said, and business development falls outside of that. Ward-Boyle said many
would-be aboriginal entrepreneurs have cash flow and education issues, making
small business startups difficult.
Residents of First Nation communities, for instance, cannot
use their homes as equity.
Other New Brunswick award winners included the Metepenagiag
Outdoor Adventure Lodge and John Bernard, president and CEO of Ottawa-based
technology company Donna Cona Inc., who won the Atlantic entrepreneur of the
year award. Bernard is originally from Madawaska.
-article from The Telegraph-Journal Friday September 15, 2006.
