CSR and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to highlight blind spots in the discourse of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stretch the boundaries of existent CSR frameworks within the particular context of resource extraction and with regard to the particular stakeholder group of Indigenous peoples in Canada. This context is important in light of the recommendations from the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), as they relate to initiatives that businesses may take towards reconciliation with Indigenous people. Design/methodology/approach This paper brings together a disparate body of literature on CSR, Indigenous spiritual values and experiences of extractive practices on Indigenous ancestral lands. Suggestions are offered for empirical research and projects that may advance the project of reconciliation. Findings CSR may not be an appropriate framework for reconciliation without alteration to its managerial biases and ideological assumptions. The CSR discourse needs to accommodate the “free prior and informed consent” of Indigenous peoples and their spiritual values and knowledge vis-à-vis the land for resource extractive practices to edge towards being socially responsible when they occur on Canadian ancestral territories. Originality/value Canadian society exists in a post-TRC world, which demands that we reconcile with our past of denying Indigenous values and suppressing the cultures of Indigenous peoples from flourishing. This paper aspires to respond to the TRC’s recommendation for how businesses in the resource extractive industries may engage meaningfully and authentically with Indigenous people in Canada as a step towards reconciliation.

Buen Vivir: A Path to Reimagining Corporate Social Responsibility in Mexico after COVID-19

“…CSR based on Buen Vivir would be developed in and within communities-not around communities, which the company too often views as another group of stakeholders [76]. In other words, the company would see itself as part of the community and look at the community as part of itself.…”

“…Hence, Buen Vivir implies a shift from stakeholder management to community engagement [76,89]. The stakeholder management approach essentially places the firm at the center and stakeholders in relation to the firm as they affect the firm's interests or the firm affects their interests (Freeman, 1984).…”

Contesting extractivism: international business and people’s struggles against extractive industries

“…In “CSR and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada,” Long (2020) departs from the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), which resulted in a Call to Action to bring about proper reconciliation with indigenous communities affected by extractive industries – a very sore but often ignored point in many countries around the world. Among the TRC report’s many recommendations, the need to “commit to meaningful consultation, building respectful relationships, and obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before proceeding with economic development projects” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 10) is representative of the deep historical conflict in question here.…”

“…[…] reconciliation must take the form of business practices which forge respectful relationships with Indigenous peoples that are not only characterized by consultation and consent but by equality of access to training and employment, redistribution of the economic benefits from development projects, intercultural competency and Indigenous rights training for management, and more (Long, 2020, p. 4).…”

“…Part of this is to reframe our understanding of, and approach to, stakeholders. In dialogue with Coronado and Fallon (2010, p. 671), who wrote in the Australian context about how aboriginal people were promoted to the status of “stakeholder,” Long sees this process as political because “an economic value ascribed to lands and resources may be incompatible with, or will tend to subordinate, the values and interests of Indigenous peoples as manifest in the cultural importance attached to certain landscapes” (Long, 2020, p. 14). Seeing somebody as stakeholder and engaging Indigenous people in CSR processes is, hence, a political act that needs to be scrutinized as such.…”