In which the Millbrook First Nation escapes the economic racism of past generations with the help of some good corporate thinking.

by Tom Mason

As the late summer sun sinks below the horizon, Chief Lawrence Paul likes to leave his modest bungalo for his nightly walk. The 66-year-old leader of Nova Scotia’s Millbrook First Nation follows a well-worn route—one that’s changed a lot in the past few years. The forested road beside a busy highway has given way to the flattened footprint of the Truro Power Centre, a multi-use retail and industrial park that’s slowly coming to life. Sometimes Paul stops at the newly opened Tim Horton’s, the first on aboriginal land anywhere in Atlantic Canada. Sometimes he tries his luck at Millbrook Casino, the new band casino that sits on land that until recently was thick forest. Sometimes he even stops to look at the nearly completed overpass and on-ramp that is making the Power Centre a reality—Exit 13A, the Millbrook Connector, a symbol of prosperity for the Millbrook First Nation. When all the space is filled, Paul’s people will have succeeded in a decidedly untraditional business: big-box retail.

Located within the town limits of Truro, Nova Scotia’s third-largest urban centre, the sprawling Millbrook reserve has long been a study in contrasts from the stately homes of merchants and textile executives just beyond its borders. In the past, it functioned as Truro’s very own ghetto, a place best avoided by the white townsfolk who feared and mistrusted their Mi’kmaq neighbours. That’s changing fast, in part because of a new ecomomic prosperity that’s sweeping the reserve. Perched on one of the most visible pieces of real estate in Nova Scotia, the Power Centre offers easy access to Highway 102, the province’s busiest highway. When the space is filled, the First Nation will play host to a major restaurant chain, a hotel, a series of big-box retail outlets and a 55,000 sq. ft. shopping mall. Along with the visibility and high traffic, the Power Centre has an ace-in-the-hole. Millbrook First Nation falls under federal jurisdiction, making it exempt from the controversial Lord’s Day Act, which prohibits any Nova Scotian retail store that’s larger than 2,000 sqare feet from opening on Sunday, making it the only province in Canada in which Sunday shopping is effectively banned. But Millbrook is telling tenants they can keep any hours they want, and the Power Centre has the potential to become a retail oasis, attracting large numbers of Sunday shoppers from Halifax, a scant 100 kilometres away.

Part small town mayor, part corporate executive, part old-style native chief, Paul slips easily from one role to the next. He’s an orator and storyteller in the great tradition of Mi’kmaq leaders and can turn on the eloquence at will. He remembers the 1950s, when his family was forced to sit in a segregated section on the balcony at church; and the bitter night in 1954 when his father was thrown out of a local legion for being native. In the 1960s, the local doctors kept “Indian time,” a one-hour slot between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. that was the only time Millbrook residents could receive medical treatment. “Too bad if you were dying at 2:00 o’clock,” Paul says with his characteristic good-natured chuckle. Though Paul insists that the past is the past and all is forgiven, old attitudes die hard, particularly those motivated by race. True, the Truro Power Centre is a golden opportunity for anyone who’s interested—80 acres of flexible leasing opportunities with no municipal planning controls—but the historical tensions will be hard to overcome.

It’s Ray Merriam’s job to make sure that happens. The former politician, corporate motivational trainer and entrepreneur is the Power Centre’s marketing director. Plucked from the non-native community where he was a respected municipal official, Merriam sounds positively evangelical at times as he touts the potential of this “world-class site” to anyone who will listen. “If ever there was a model of free enterprise, this is it,” Merriam crows. “This is a place that focuses on all the reasons why you can do business and not on the reasons why you can’t. This is the way business was meant to be. Not controlled by politicians who are not businesspeople to start with.”

Merriam unrolls engineer’s drawing and points out the highlights of the site—a truck plaza, a retail mall, a state-of-the-art aquaculture facility and greenhouse to be run by the band. The focal point is a Mi’kmaq heritage centre and museum that features a 40-foot statue of the Mi’kmaq god Glooscap. Merriam promises it will be tastefully done, and has even approached Disney Corp. for a possible partnership arrangement. “We’re moving into an experience economy,” says Merriam. “You have to make it fun for people to come to your site. You have to offer a variety of experiences to attract them.”

Rick Martin, founder and president of Best Management Practices Network, a company that helps companies through the pitfalls of the knowledge economy, says Merriam is right on the money. Martin has just completed a three-year, eight-nation study for the federal government to identify the factors that cause small businesses to fail. He has worked with the native community in Canada since 1989, when he helped Cree Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come and the Northern Cree set up Cree Energy Inc., a native-run oil company. He calls the Truro Power Centre nothing less than visionary—a template for business parks in the 21st century, which he has dubbed a “commercial community.” “What Chief Paul has done is to create a new business model that we’ve never seen before,” says Martin. “It offers a unique feel, a unique identity, a unique experience. Each element—the retail element, the hotel, the interpretive centre, the manufacturing facility—each works to create a new synergy and feed the dynamics of the whole park. If you look at the way big-city shopping centres are starting to develop, you can already see the first glimmers of a commercial community.”

Truro may be a little out of the way for a new business paradigm, but Martin believes the world will take notice. He’s working with Merriam to develop a website that will help business park developers use the Power Centre model as a benchmark for their own developments. It’s heady stuff for a community that didn’t even register on the business radar a few years ago.

In 1972, the new Highway 102 sliced the 900 acre Millbrook Reserve cleanly in two. Neighbors who were once adjacent were now only accessible by a seven-kilometre drive through a high-traffic industrial park. There were accidents and near accidents as band members crossed the busy highway on foot to visit friends and relatives on the other side.

Shortly after his first election as chief in 1984, Paul started negotiations with the federal government to build an overpass and access ramps that would reconnect the reserve and give Millbrook a crack at the thousands of potential customers who streamed by every. After several years of bargaining, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency agreed to chip in $1.5 million and the provincial government promised to match it, though the provincial money came with a catch. The Department of Highways wanted to connect a truck route to the new overpass that would extend down to the nearby Truro Industrial Park, effectively splitting up the reserve even more. The band rejected the idea in a referendum and the province rescinded its offer. Meanwhile, the federal money was slowly used up on other band-related projects and cost overruns, and the overpassed remained but a dream.

Undaunted, Paul and his council worked hard developing other economic opportunities. First they established small casinos on Millbrook and on small satellite first nations in the communities of Cole Harbour and Sheet Harbour, using the money they obtained from those operations to act as seed money for other ventures. They developed Millbrook Fisheries—signing an agreement last year with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans that’s said to be worth $25 million in licenced access to lobster, crab, scallops, shrimp and tuna. But the most ambitious project was a $5-million apartment complex built on a 47-acre parcel of Millbrook land in Cole Harbour, within the boundaries of urban Halifax. A state-of-the-art high-security building geared toward empty nesters, Coldwell Glen was paid for with the gaming profits of Millbrook’s casinos. When the city of Halifax balked at the idea of connecting municipal sewer and water to the apartment complex, Paul promised to develop his own water treatment facility on a neighboring lake and threatened to put 300 low-rent mobile homes on the land. The city relented.

In 1997, Paul asked for his overpass again. This time Indian Affairs Minister David Nault agreed to fund the whole shot—$7.5 million.

Paul started courting Power Centre tenants the second Nault’s signature was dry. The Sobeys grocery store chain was the first to sign on, taking a three acre parcel of land for 40 years that they subleased to Tim Horton’s, A&W, Ultramar and their own Needs convenience store. For Sobeys’ vice-president, Stan Hughes, the Power Centre was too good an opportunity to pass up. Nova Scotia’s government has long frowned on giving commercial establishments direct highway access, and the Power Centre’s visibility was unprecedented. The high volume of traffic that passed the site 24 hours a day provided an untapped market for Sobeys’ retail convenience stores, which have traditionally been placed in the hearts of communities. But most of all, Hughes was impressed by the business acumen of Chief Paul, who approached him with the idea of starting a partnership arrangement.

A demographic study conducted by Sobeys confirmed the potential of the Millbrook site. The study confirmed that more than 22,000 cars passed the Power Centre site every day with more than 40,000 on weekends, making it one of the busiest pieces of highway in Nova Scotia. Added to that are more than 50,000 people in the Colchester area who regularly shop in Truro. It was too good an opportunity for Sobeys to pass up, and a deal was quickly worked out. Hammering out a business model that suited the federal government, the official owner of the reserve, took longer—more than two years. But the agreement serves as a template for other businesses locating on first nations across the country.

Paul was also close to signing on Wal-Mart, but the talks unravelled and the American big box chose another site on a piece of undeveloped land at nearby Exit 13, just a few metres off reserve property. The reasons for Wal-Mart’s decision depend on who you talk to. The official reason given to the media: the retail giant wanted to own the land, which was not a possibility on the reserve. Others say the location was too far out of town. Paul believes the tax-exempt status of the area’s principal customer base, the native population of Millbrook, would have caused an administration hassle that Walmart preferred to avoid.

But Merriam says that’s not likely to stop other potential tenants. He says the Power Centre meets all the demographic requirements the big box retailers are looking for. Along with traffic flow, the site is just 100 kilometres from a major urban centre (Halifax), and has good tourism infrastructure, three colleges nearby and major highway access. “One retailer in the States I’m negotiating with now told me that’s not often that a site like ours meets all the criteria,” says Merriam.

It was during a long vacation in the Southern United States that Ray Merriam had an epiphany. He had run unsuccessfully for the mayor’s office in Colchester, and the trip was an attempt to cool off. He began noticing the economic clout of the native populations of states such as Arizona and New Mexico. “They don’t have these fences in their heads down there,” he says. “It’s not about us against them.” Merriam decided to go work for Chief Paul, which was stunning in light of their history. After all, Merriam was the person who, as economic development negotiator for Colchester, was largely responsible for wrestling Wal-Mart away from Millbrook.

It’s Wal-Mart’s loss, according to the now converted Merriam. He’s still keeping the names of prospective tenants under his hat, but he says five major hotel chains are vying for the opportunity to locate at the Power Centre. A major family restaurant chain and an American factory outlet are close to signing on, and big-box staples like Home Depot and Ikea are being thrown around as possible anchor tenants. Long-established retailers from downtown Truro are also reportedly interested. “When you’ve got people as big as Sobeys who are willing to come on board and sign a 40 year lease, that sends a pretty powerful message to the rest of the business community,” says Merriam. “A lot of people who were going to wait and see started calling us after the Sobeys deal was announced.”

Merriam says the people of Truro are getting the message too. “I have people in the non-native community coming up to me every day, shaking my hand and saying ‘It’s about time.’ The native people have been denied for too long, and most people in this community are cheering for them.”

The strides that Millbrook is taking are far from unique. They are part of a new wave of native-run businesses sweeping Canada—bringing once-poor first nations a new prosperity. The Lac La Ronge Band in northern Saskatchewan has developed Kitsaki Development Corp. to manage a portfolio of businesses that includes mining, insurance, lumber, agribusiness and hospitality. The Osoyoos band of British Columbia is now operating 10 businesses, including a winery, a vineyard and a native interpretation centre. And Peace Hills Trust, a native financial institution with $1 billion in assets started in Alberta, may soon be one of the Power Centre’s tenants.

Martin says the new prosperity is no coincidence. Native society is perfectly in step with the business ideals of the 21st century and the knowledge economy, offering a traditional leadership style that values people and their skill sets above all else. It accounts for the staying power of a society that measures its history in millenia. “Eighty percent of small businesses fail within 10 years. Very few large businesses last 50 years. Most nations cease to exist after a handful of centuries. Even ancient nations like Japan have only been around for 1,500 years or so. The only cultural model that has survived for many thousands of years is the aboriginal culture. They must have important lessons to teach us.”

The signs of Millbrook’s new affluence are everywhere. The weathered shacks of a generation ago are gone. In their place, the freshly paved streets and new houses have the look of a modest, middle-class suburb. The band council is building a large new headquarters in the centre of the reserve, and last year every one of Millbrook’s 1,100 men, women and children received a $2,000 dividend from gaming revenues—a gift Chief Paul promises will become an annual stipend. In May, Millbrook Fisheries launched its first new vessel, an $800,000 fishing trawler that will eventually lead a fleet of 16. It’s name—the Chief Lawrence Paul.

“Lawrence Paul thinks like a corporate CEO at the highest level, in the toughest situations,” says Martin. But he also has strong native values. He puts people first, he values people and he knows how to listen to them and use their talents wisely. That’s a potent combination.

NOTE: This story was originally published in Canadian Business magazine in 2001. Since then, the Lord’s Day Act in Nova Scotia has become a thing of the past, but I’m pleased to announce that most of the other predictions in the story, including the 40-foot statue of Glooscap, have come true.