Prince George, B.C. – The race to cash in on the extraction of the vast resources of northern B.C. is well underway, somewhat resembling the stampede westward during the gold and mineral booms of days gone by.

There is money to be made and parties from resource industries to governments to the average Joe and Jane of the Canadian workforce are all looking to slice off their piece of the pie.  And that includes aboriginal populations such as the Lheidli T’enneh Nation, whose traditional territory stretches over 4.3-million hectares from the Rocky Mountains to the interior plateau.  “We’re trying to send the message that the Lheidli T’enneh is open for business.  We want to be sure that we, at least, look at the opportunities that are there for the nation and ensure that we try to capitalize on them.”

Those are the words of Keith Henry, the Community Economic Development Manager with the Lheidli T’enneh, who together with Chief Dominic Fredercik spoke with 250 News about a memordanum of understanding reached with Britco, one of the largest modular building construction companies in the industry.  With operations in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, it provides temporary and permanent residential and commercial buildings to customers in the construction, energy and resource sectors.

The MOU signed December 19th would establish a joint venture modular building rental and workforce accommodation business to supply modular buildings to the  companies with major projects planned for traditional territories and other areas of northern BC.  The partnership would provide economic opportunities, jobs and skills training in the construction trades for the Lheidli T’enneh.  Britco opened a branch office in Prince George in 2013.

Chief Fredercik explains how the two parties hooked up.  “Well we reached out to Britco about a year ago in Penticton.  We heard that Britco was the leading proponent for helping the first nations on the coast to build a pavilion in 2010 (for the Olympic Winter Games).  So we thought it would be a good idea to have them up here and work with them in helping us put something together for a pavilion for the 2015 games in Prince George.”  He says the parties are currently working on plans to put a pavilion on a site within the city.

Chief Frederick says things just snowballed from there.  “Yes it just went from there and now we have a Memorandum of Understanding providing jobs and skills training for members while the value for Britco is (gaining access to) our knowledge of the resource industry in our traditional territory.”  Henry says the MOU “gives us the parameters to start discussions and have an understanding of some specific areas, one of them being the supplying of modular buildings and workforce accommodations for industries that are proposing projects within traditional territory.”  He also reiterated the jobs and skills training facets.  Asked how many jobs will be created, Henry says “at this point that still needs to be determined, we haven’t made any commitments on either side or talked specific numbers but there’s a potential for that.”

Henry says it’s possible that modular units could be constructed here, although he notes “they (Britco) have got two facilities, one in the lower mainland and one in the Okanagan, so I would anticipate that they are constructed in those locations.  I guess our discussions could be that maybe we could look at having a construction facility in Prince George but again that’s yet to be discussed and yet to be determined.”  Asked whether Lheidli T’enneh members would go down south to fill out the jobs at those plants Henry says “that’s a possibility but at the same time there is activity up here in the north where the jobs could also be.  The jobs could be close to home here.”

Henry says there are many specifics of the partnership with Britco that have yet to be worked out.  “Another aspect of it is discussions on revenue sharing in terms of many of these buildings that are being rented or leased or purchased within the traditional territory.”

Henry says there are a number of other economic development projects that are being worked on and which, to this point, have been kept low-key as far as publicity is concerned.  He says “it all goes back to industry which is proposing projects within our territory.  We’re definitely in discussions looking at specific projects and seeing what type of economic development opportunities there are for the Lheidli T’enneh members.”

Henry says it will take some time to work through all of the details of the agreement with Britco.  He says the first step will be the development of the aboriginal pavilion for the 2015 games.  “I would say that’s safe to say, it would be one of the first steps focussing on that, but also focussing on different opportunities with the different industries.”  He says Lheidli T’enneh members could work on the pavilion here.  “That’s still yet to be determined so yes, that could be one possibility.  We could have another partner join us as well so they could be working under that partner, but again, we’re still working on the planning stages and relationship-building so there is still a lot of discussion that needs to happen for that to be determined.”