Indigenous-led financial initiatives needed: former Cowessess First Nation chief Delorme
An Indigenous-led private-equity firm launched this week with a mission to build business ownership and investment capacity within First Nations and Métis communities, tapping into settlement capital from past land-claims agreements, the Globe and Mail reported.
Flowing River Capital, based in Regina, was founded by four partners — two Indigenous and two non-Indigenous. The firm aims to help Indigenous communities invest portions of the approximately $12 billion received from land-claims settlements with the federal government over the past decade.
Flowing River’s leadership includes chairman Cadmus Delorme, former chief of Cowessess First Nation, who garnered national attention in 2021 following the discovery of 751 potential unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.
“The economic horse pulls the social cart,” Delorme said, emphasizing the need for Indigenous-led financial initiatives to address poverty and inequality. “I’m gonna be very direct here – a lot of the budget is the social cart. And that social cart is needed because we inherited a history together... But at some point, in order to get to full reconciliation, Indigenous people also have to be co-driving and co-developing the economic horse, and that’s what the four of us are doing.”
