Corporate Knights lauds top companies for getting along with aboriginals

Corporate Knights Magazine has published a list of Canada's top companies when it comes to relations with aboriginal communities. It examined 28 companies based on size in four sectors: Forestry, Mining, Oil and Gas, and Utilities. It looked at employment, business development, community relations, environmental impact, and governance. And the top companies were:

• Forestry: Domtar Corp.
• Mining: Cameco Corp.
• Oil and Gas: Suncor Energy Inc.
• Utilities: British Columbia Hydro and Power
  

"With over 40 per cent of Canada's resource rich land controlled lock, stock and barrel by Aboriginal communities, the ability to get along with our First Nations, Métis and Inuit compatriots will underline the difference between companies that succeed and companies that fail in the resource sector," said Toby Heaps, editor of Corporate Knights. "In an increasingly resource constrained world, this ability to get along with indigenous communities counts big time not just in Canada, but also as a bellwether for making projects work in further-flung parts of the globe."

That's the good news. But Corporate Knights also found that only lip service is paid to joint management -- only two out of the 28 companies have an Aboriginal director on their board.

The full results and methodology are available on www.corporateknights.ca/aboriginal and are summarized in the Earth Day issue (Vol. 7.4) of Corporate Knights, distributed to over 100,000 Canadians on Earth Day, April 22, 2009.