On March 4th, the CBABC and the Victoria Bar Association are coming together to welcome Merle Alexander and Tamara Napoleon of Miller Titerle + Company to discuss doing business with Indigenous peoples to empower the Canadian economy. Our speakers will dive into topical issues and bring to light:
 

Overview of the key triggers that bring us together:

• Duty to consult;
• Social licence;
• Access to preferential contracting;
• Advantageous tax structuring;
   

Areas we’re doing Business Together:

• Collaborative business ventures (JV, LP and LLP);
• Indigenous procurement;
• Impact benefit agreements with Proponents
   

Do’s and Don’ts:

• Intercultural awareness;
• Seeing Indigenous partners as assets not liabilities;
• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
   

Future Economy

• Catching the Indigenous economic wave;
• Cost of not doing business with Indigenous Peoples;
• Empowered economy that brings everyone along.

 Biographies

Merle Alexander is a member and hereditary chief of Kitasoo Xai x’ais First Nation on the mid-coast of British Columbia.  He is co-leader of Miller Titerle's First Nation Economic Development group and practices Indigenous Resource Law empowering Nations through Title and Rights affirmation, sustainable economic development and environmental conservation.

Merle is a "life of project" lawyer assisting with negotiations of all stages of impact benefit agreements, joint ventures, regulatory engagement, traditional knowledge collection and other corporate and tax related advice.  He is continuously engaged in Nation-building through emerging government to government negotiations in all resource areas including: mining, oil & gas, forestry, pipelines, run-of-river and hydro projects.  Merle adapts his solicitor experience and skill set to the infinitely emerging and developing needs of Indigenous clients.
 

Tamara Napoleon is a member of Saulteau First Nations and among a handful of Indigenous female solicitors in Canada.

Her vision and initiative is focused in her identification of Indigenous law as an instrument of change for not only empowering Indigenous peoples but returning Indigenous women to their respected place of equality, respect, and prestige in their communities.

Tamara is a well-established advisor focusing on Indigenous economic development, corporate structuring, Indigenous governance, and natural resource stewardship. Tamara’s practice involves negotiations with resource companies and government-to-government negotiations with both levels of Crown, drafting and advising on a range of project agreements and reconciliation agreements. Throughout her work, it remains an important objective that the legal orders of the Indigenous clients she serves are fundamentally integrated and upheld.

Tamara shares her skills with East Vancouver Indigenous community non-profits, provincial educational institutions, as a member of the First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and her own Nation’s economic development corporation, Mistahiya Develoment Corp.  She is also a former Vice President of Aboriginal Mothers’ Centre Society, director of Vancouver Native Health Society and Governor of The Justice Institute of BC.