Welcome to Drumbeats, the must -listen -to podcast
which explains why Indigenous partnerships are
the key to securing successful outcomes in natural
resource and infrastructure investment in Canada.
I'm Mark McNacca, and my co -host Robert Brant
and I are joined today by Jamie Lickers, Senior
Vice President of Indigenous Markets at CIBC.
We discussed her role in helping Indigenous communities
grow stronger economically. She's also talked
about how CIBC manages the largest collection
of Indigenous trust assets in the country. Jamie
Lickers, Senior Vice President, Indigenous Markets
at CIBC. It's great to have you back in London.
Welcome to the podcast. Yes, welcome. Great to
have you here, Jamie. And thank you for coming
earlier to the summit. Oh, it was my pleasure.
It was such a wonderful and productive day. Maybe
first, Jamie, tell us a little bit about your
background, where you're from, your community,
and a little bit about your role today and how
you got there. Happily. So, as you know, Rob,
like you, I'm Haudenosaunee. I'm a member, though,
of the Onondaga Nation, not the Mohawk Nation,
from the community of Six Nations, which is in
southern Ontario. So I grew up in my community,
which is located fairly centrally in Ontario
between Hamilton and Brantford. So fairly...
urban Indigenous community, not remote by any
standards. And I spent my young years there growing
up with my family, who still is in Six Nations,
and left the community when I was 18, went off
to do my undergrad and my legal studies at Queen's
University, which I'm a proud, proud alum of
Queen's. As I am. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. We
should chat about that a bit more. I loved it
so much I went back for law school, despite all
of the other amazing options for legal studies
in Canada. Great law school. Great focus on Indigenous
law, which is what I ended up focusing my practice
on. So I'm not a banker by... trade. I'm not
a career banker. You're a lawyer. I'm a lawyer
first. I don't know which is better. I can tell
you which is worse, but maybe we'll leave that
for another day. I often joke that I'm a recovering
lawyer, although I'm not really sure that you
ever fully recover from practicing law. I'll
let you know in a few years, but I've only been
with the bank for about four and a half years
now. So I joined the bank in the fall of 2020.
after about 12 years of practicing law in private
practice for two big corporate national law firms,
but always on the Indigenous side of things.
And later in my career, I came to specialize
in a distinct area of financial services law
for Indigenous clients, primarily developing
trust agreements for them when they settled.
large -scale claims against the government or
entered into lucrative resource revenue sharing
deals. Most of those communities will take those
funds and put them into trust. It still is, I
would say, the most popular legal vehicle for
holding and managing the assets of the community.
And I found that there were not many lawyers
at all in Canada that were specializing in the
drafting and structuring of trusts specifically
for Indigenous communities. So it was quite a
niche area. And through that work, I came to
work very closely with all of the trust companies
in Canada, all the major trust companies, most
of whom are affiliated with the large banks in
Canada. That included CIBC. I did quite a bit
of work with CIBC when I was practicing law.
They became one of my largest clients. And then
eventually they invited me over to head up the
Indigenous Markets team. And the rest is history,
as they say. Maybe a bit about the role. And
we can compare backstories at some point, too,
because you've got a similar backstory to yourself.
The title, Indigenous Markets, and is that different
from Indigenous Banking or Indigenous Relations?
What is your role involved? Yeah, that's a great
question. I would say that the title of the team
that I lead at the bank is quite intentional.
It's not Indigenous relations and it's not Indigenous
banking. And of course, many of our counterparts
in the financial industry will have teams and
leaders of things called Indigenous banking or
Indigenous relations. My position as the leader
of our Indigenous markets team at CIBC really
reflects the primary lines of business that we
operate in, which currently include commercial
banking and trust management. So I lead a team
of professionals across the country who are dedicated
to serving the needs of our Indigenous clients
in those two spaces. So our commercial banking
team services, for the most part, Indigenous
governments as public entities. So Indian Act
bans, self -governing nations, Métis settlement
councils, Inuit governments. as the public sector
entities. And then, of course, we support their
related entities. So as you know, many of them
will have economic development corporations.
They may run their own health and education authorities.
And so we would service those public sector entities
as opposed to serving private clients or privately
owned Indigenous business. That's outside of
the work that my team does at CIBC. And then
on the other side of the business, I oversee
a team of trust experts that sit under our CIBC
Trust Company, but service only the needs and
the assets of our Indigenous trust clients. And
I'm very proud to say that, to our knowledge,
we now have the largest book of Indigenous trust
assets under administration at CIBC, totaling...
somewhere between 27 and 28 billion. It changes
every day. New files come in every day. Can you
explain a bit for our audience about the Indigenous
Trust business and what's involved in that? Definitely.
Trusts are my passion. It's where I focused my
legal practice towards the end of my legal career
and a big part of the reason that I came over
to CIBC. So I can talk about Indigenous trust
in my sleep. I can talk about the taxation of
Indigenous trust in my sleep, whether that's
good or bad. Again, I'm still recovering from
being a lawyer. But an absolutely growing and
booming business, I bet. The number of settlements
and the need for expertise to manage. Settlement
funds. As you said, new files every day, I bet.
It is. It's growing so quickly that we admittedly
have a difficult time keeping up with the growth
of our team and our human capital to service
the demand for the services in the market. The
number of claims that are being settled is just
absolutely exploding. Those claims include individual
claims, Rob, as you would know, at the specific
claims tribunal where one particular nation might
be advancing a claim related to a breach of a
treaty promise or the failure to deliver on some
commitment from the Crown. And they would settle
that claim on behalf of their nation alone. And
those claims can easily be in the hundreds of
millions of dollars. But now we're also seeing...
two additional avenues of large -scale settlements.
One is the collective advancement of treaty -based
claims on behalf of the group of nations that
are all signatories to a particular treaty. So
last year, we saw the historic settlement of
the Robinson -Huron claim, which was advanced
by all of the nations who are signatories to
the Robinson -Huron Treaty for the failure of
the Crown to increase their annuity payments
to properly reflect the value. of natural resources
that was extracted from those territories. Sorry,
can you just give our audience some idea of the
geography? Where is that area located in Canada?
The Robinson -Huron Treaty Territory would be,
we say Northern Ontario, but then the folks from
the Ring of Fire would tell us that it's not
Northern Ontario. Middle Ontario. Central, Middle
Ontario, up into a bit of the... the western
area of the Great Lakes. So to my knowledge,
and I'm not a treaty expert per se, but I believe
there were 21 nations that are signatories to
that Robinson -Huron Treaty. And they were all
promised under that treaty an annuity payment
of $4 a year at the time the treaty was signed
to reflect the value of resources being extracted
from their collective territory. That $4 a year,
that amount was never increased. Despite, as
you can imagine, the exponential change in the
dollar value of the resources being extracted.
So the settlement was just over $21 billion for
those nations. It was a really interesting legal
issue too, as I recall, because within the treaty
there was no inflation adjusted provision that
said we would increase it or we had to increase
that amount every year. But there was a discretionary.
clause in it about the crown, I think, had discretion
to increase the amount, but the claim was successful
because I think the court said there was discretion,
but any reasonable party would treat that. There's
no way you could say you exercised your discretion
in a reasonable way, given that you never increased
that amount. And over time, with interest to
add it up. The $21 billion was a settled amount.
It's unclear how much would have been awarded
had the issue of damages gone to the courts.
So coming back, the federal government has on
its balance sheet $70 billion in terms of liabilities,
I think, for claims. Is that approximately the
right number? I think they've set aside, yeah,
as a reserve that's sort of in their financial
accounts. But this would be outside of that.
Yeah, the 70 is to come, an amount they expect
to come yet. The 20, I think, is already accounted
for. Well, similarly, as you would know, there
is a companion treaty in the Robinson Superior
Treaty area, the Robinson -Huron region where
that treaty was signed by the 21 nations. Now
we have the Robinson Superior Treaty, which has
the same language. has the same $4 annuity payment,
which was also never increased by the Crown.
And so everyone is waiting to see what the settlement
will be on the Robinson -Superior Treaty claim,
because it's a bit difficult for the Crown to
deny liability when they've paid out on the Robinson
-Huron Treaty. So billions. It will be billions.
And it's Lake Superior, Lake Huron, right? To
help people put those names in. Attach it all.
And again, the reference to the crown, which
a lot of people might not understand because
in Canada, everybody has a virtual monarchy because
there's not a physical representation of the
crown. There's the governor general represents,
but all these treaties are with the crown, which
comes back to the federal government. And that
is very unique. I understand when we're at the
Commonwealth Summit. That was before our Canadian
Indigenous Investment Summit. Because our members
who joined us, some of the leaders we had, like
Harold Calla, Ernie Daniels were talking, Mark
Palasi. We have a unique structure in Canada
because of this relationship with the Crown.
But that's a lot of money. So what is the size
of the Indigenous trust market at the moment?
An estimate of what that is and where does CIBC
rank in terms of serving that market? Well, perhaps,
so just to give you a fulsome picture of what
we're talking about. So in addition to those
individual claims in the hundreds of millions
that I talked about, the... collective treaty
claims like Robinson Huron and Robinson Superior,
there is a third stream of settlements that we're
seeing now, specifically in the class action
space. And there we're talking about class action
settlements like the residential school settlement,
the child and family services settlement. We're
seeing additional class actions being certified
right now to advance. cases regarding collective
harm suffered not by a nation or not because
of a treaty right but just in regard to a failure
to provide an adequate level of programs and
services for Indigenous people in some area or
another. Our firm, McCarthy Tetro, has been active
in that, acting for First Nations on a clean
water class action, which was settled for multiple
billions of dollars just a couple of years ago.
We've also got one at the moment for housing,
the failure to provide adequate housing. So yeah,
I talk about different streams of rights being...
advanced courts have been very supportive. These
claims take sometimes years and years to advance,
but a lot of them seem to be coming to a head
at the moment. And the courts are ruling in favor
of the Indigenous people time after time. Notably,
last year, the Child and Family Services class
action was settled for $23 billion. Wow. So how
much, you know, we've got this 70 billion that's
on the, for future claims, but the market up
till now for these trusts, is it, I don't know,
50 billion, 100 billion that's available out
there for you and others to compete? So it's
plus 100 billion. Plus 100 billion at the moment,
of which CIBC has approximately 27 to 28 billion
in assets under management. So a significant
portion. Yes. And that trust money then, can
it be used with the way the law is structured
to leverage for investments? That's a great question.
That's a really great question. We're finally
seeing the evolution of trust law. You have to
keep in mind that trusts as legal entities were
created for a very different purpose than...
how we're seeing Indigenous nations use those
entities now. So they were created, for the most
part, to manage wealth for a small pool of beneficiaries,
usually a family. When Indigenous communities
started adopting these structures to manage settlement
funds, it fundamentally changed the nature and
the purpose of the trust as a legal entity. Because
now you're talking about holding large pools
of assets for a much larger pool of beneficiaries
and for very extended periods of time. So a lot
of these trusts are structured to exist for 100
plus years. And where legislation doesn't prohibit
it, they are specifically structured to last
in perpetuity. And the way the trusts are set
up. The capital is meant to be maintained and
to grow with inflation so that the nation maintains
the whole of that capital asset while also producing
a reliable stream of revenue for program and
service delivery in the community. So over time,
we have seen... the drafting and the structuring
of these trusts really changed to recognize the
needs of the Indigenous communities as opposed
to the needs of wealthy families who may have
historically used trust structures. One of those
key developments over the last number of years
has been the express permission to use trust
assets as security for lending. In years past,
In many cases, the use of trust property as security
was expressly prohibited as opposed to permitted,
which left many nations in a position where they
had significant assets. In many cases, the bulk
of their assets tied and locked into a trust,
which had very stringent amendment provisions.
They couldn't change. They couldn't access the
capital. And the only benefit flowing from some
of those older model trusts was an annual payment
to the community. And at the same time, they
couldn't get a capital loan to build a new community
center. or to create a residence to keep their
aging elders in their community and provide health
care for them. So they had hundreds of millions
of dollars of assets sitting in trust that they
can't access, they can't change the terms of
the trust, they can't withdraw capital, and they
can't leverage it for lending. So lawyers, sometimes
we get it right, thought we should probably do
something about this. And I think there's a balance.
to be struck between making it too easy to access
the capital and too easy to leverage the capital
of the community's largest pool of assets and
making it too restrictive such that you're handcuffed.
And you can imagine how controversial sometimes
it can be within the community. There's some
people who want to just, where's my check today?
And there are other people who want to create
a legacy that will last seven generations. and
so there's that internal debate about what to
do with these funds there's a settlement term
sometimes restrictive um so there's a bit of
a yeah a variety but it's a it's a growing business
and capacity issues indigenous communities you
know not a lot of them have the capacity to really
deal with those funds. They're reliant on advisors
like CIBC and lawyers and others. Lawyers like
McCarthy Tetro. Lawyers like McCarthy Tetro to
help them manage those funds in the way that
the community wants them managed. Interesting.
An analogy from here in the UK, though, that
comes to mind for me is with North Sea Oil. So
Norway was very smart and set up a sovereign
wealth fund from the get -go. North Sea oil started
to really flow during Thatcher's time, and they
just used it to fund the current account deficit,
and the money went out the door. So now that
North Sea oil is significantly reduced in terms
of the future output of it, here's Norway, very
high standard of living, one of the largest sovereign
wealth funds, and here's the UK thinking about,
oh, we should maybe be setting out. sovereign
wealth fund but all that oil revenue that could
have gone into it hasn't and i think that's what
as you said it is a contentious issue for any
community hey i can get this for today or i can
have something for tomorrow so there will be
obviously a balance struck are there foreign
firms competing against you for serving That
business, I mean, the Canadian banking system
has come up in discussions from south of the
border in the recent past. Canada's always had
a relatively protected market, but it's been
served well, whether that's because of the objectives
of the banks or the regulatory framework has
prevented that. It has been a very stable banking
market. It's served well, perhaps higher fees,
but that's not the... The question is, can foreign
firms get in and compete against that? And how
does that look? I'm sure they would like to.
I think that one of the challenges for Indigenous
communities generally in Canada right now is
for decades when they needed support and assistance
and access to services, all kinds of services.
There weren't necessarily many allies there offering
to help. And in the last 10 to 20 years, as we
see the settlement of claims in the billions
of dollars, of course, we see an influx of people
that are now interested in helping. And it's
a difficult situation because choice in the marketplace
is important. And I work closely with my counterparts
at all of the other major financial institutions
in Canada. And I believe that many of them are
doing very good work, as I believe that CIBC
is doing great work in the Indigenous space.
We like that our clients have choice. Now, they
should have choice. Canadians generally have
choice in terms of who they bank with, where
they place their assets, how they invest their
assets. So it's great that our Indigenous clients
have that choice as well. But when you're coming
into large, incredibly large sums of money, you
do have people looking to come in who maybe don't
know how to support the Indigenous community
in the way that others might. that see the profit
and the revenue to be made. And this is something
that our communities have always struggled with.
Being able to tell the difference between a trusted
advisor and someone who's not putting the best
interests of the community first, and they're
going to continue to face that challenge. And
as you said, the Canadian banking industry, and
particularly under the Trustee Act, and the rules
for regulating as a trust company in Canada are
very stringent. They're cautious, rightfully
so, I think. They may come. They may try to come.
They will have a lot of regulatory and legal
hurdles to jump through before there's a new
trust company on the block. But we've seen new
trust companies in the past couple of years,
which we view as positive developments. First
Nations Bank of Canada, pretty recently, and
if you think about how long trusts have existed,
fairly recently in the last couple of years,
obtained their trust company license. So new
players do come to market, for sure. And that
gives clients greater choice. We hope they still
choose us. Jamie, you were in London for the
Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit, the second
annual. And I'd be just interested to see ABC
again. We're a big supporter and you've been
with us since day one. And we very much appreciate
that support from Wayne Lee and Lisa Wright.
It's been a big, big help to us. But you attended
for the first time and what were some of your
impressions? I thought it was a fantastic day
at the summit. The conversations that were being
had by the panelists, the speakers, really top
notch. These folks are all experts in their field.
And whether that's being an expert at the community
level in terms of understanding the needs and
the vision for Indigenous communities across
Canada. Some of the Indigenous leadership and
attendants shared their stories around what their
communities have done, are doing, particularly
on the partnership side, in order to bring their
vision for their economic future of their communities
to life. And then, of course, we heard from a
number of industry professionals who have dedicated
their careers to supporting the advancement of
Indigenous communities in the economy, which
now we sort of trendily call economic reconciliation.
I think some of us were working on these issues
before it was trendy and before we started breaking
the word reconciliation into multiple parts and
dissecting it. I'm a business person through
and through at the end of the day. When I practiced
law, it was primarily on the corporate side,
working to advance the economic self -sufficiency
and wealth of Indigenous communities. And now
on the banking side, I get to continue that work.
And I do think it is critically important for
reconciliation, for there to be a huge focus
on meaningful economic participation for Indigenous
communities in Canada. Because until there's
wealth in our communities, our leadership will
continue to struggle to manage poverty. And so
I would like to see our communities managing
wealth in the very near future. And some of them
already are. Yes. And I think that, I mean, it's
key for the economy as a whole. It's like anywhere.
If part of your population is living in poverty,
your economy is not going to be productive as
it could be. It's not going to realize its full
potential. We've seen this with the economic
participation of women in societies. And so this
is a mill around the neck. Of course, for an
indigenous person in poverty, whoever's in poverty,
it's absolutely... All -consuming. It's all -consuming.
But on a larger level, in terms of getting the
economy to reach its full economic potential,
it is so important. To address that. So all Canadians
and anybody looking at investing in Canada should
be saying, wow, that is great because they're
going to address that. That's going to just drive
that economy at a higher level. I think we heard
that many times at the summit, quite a few number
of speakers made that point specifically that
a rising tide floats all boats. And that means
that if we can raise up Indigenous people and...
the Indigenous economy in Canada, it's to the
benefit of all Canadians and the world, frankly.
Yes. And we're in the heart of one of the great
financial centers of the world in London. And
we're talking about economic reconciliation.
There are other forms of reconciliation, but
you can only do so much. And I personally believe
that with economic development... and wealth,
other benefits than flow and general standard
of living and wellness. My brother has been involved
in the Indigenous sport and wellness community
across Canada. It starts with wealth when it's
done properly and economic development and then
all those other benefits hopefully flow. Agreed.
And we're seeing it. It's an incredibly interesting
time. It's a great time to be an Indigenous person
in Canada, and I'm proud to be able to say that.
That was so often not the case for our ancestors,
even our parents, our grandparents. But I watch...
Things like the Cheekbone Beauty commercials
that are on mainstream television now. I've met
Jen Harper a number of times. She's fantastic.
Her products are sold in Sephora. There's reason
to be hopeful. A lot is changing. I think just
with our, so a couple of points, just with our
podcast, because we're meeting business leaders,
professional services leaders, such as yourself,
who are Indigenous. It's secondary to the conversation.
It's not, oh, look, we have an... indigenous
leader rob rob yourself because you're that generation
who has participated now fully and are using
your networks and learnings etc etc to raise
up the rest of the indigenous people and this
wouldn't take place even 20 years ago No, not
even 10 years ago. I don't think. I mean, the
speed at which things are moving is really, really
impressive. And that would have been exciting.
Oh, look who we have on. It's a lawyer who happens
to be Indigenous. This doesn't happen anymore,
which is great. And some industries, I think,
are doing better than others. The legal profession,
I jokingly say that you can't swing a stick without
hitting an Indigenous lawyer these days, which
is great. That is a wonderful thing to be able
to say. And it wasn't the case. the case because
when it became legal for Indigenous people to
go to post -secondary and to go to law school
and to practice law in Canada, Indigenous leadership
went back to their communities and said, we have
rights that we need to advance and enforce against
the Crown, and our own people need to take up
these new tools and educate themselves so that
we have our own lawyers to fight for us. And
we're in the banking and finance industry, woefully
unrepresented as Indigenous people. And my plea
that I make every time I speak in a public forum
is to ask our leadership to go back into their
communities, make that same plea that we did
for lawyers, but for banking and finance expertise.
There are so many wonderful... and impactful
careers available in the banking and finance
industry that our young people don't even realize
are available. Not just available to them, we
want them. I will take anyone that you can give
me and... They don't need to specialize in servicing
Indigenous clients. We're past that. It's not
the time to hire one Indigenous person and put
them in charge of your Indigenous clients or
your Indigenous business. And I say that as the
Indigenous person in charge of Indigenous business
at CIBC. But that's my choice. I choose to do
this. I want to see Indigenous people on our
capital markets team. I want to see Indigenous
people in our HR department, in our legal department,
in our tech department. So many jobs at the bank,
at every large financial institution. And Indigenous
people shouldn't be pigeonholed into, oh, you're
Indigenous? Here, you can go work on our Indigenous
markets team. No, we want you on the marketing
team. We want you on every team that we have
at the bank. Yes, yes. And I think the kudos
to the banks like CIBC and National Bank of Canada
and Scotiabank who have been sponsors. for the
summit over here in the Square Mile. And that's
also a give back and support for the Indigenous
people and the businesses because they're going
to connect them with other people in capital
markets. The business isn't all going to come
to the Canadian banks, but they recognize this
is how they have to serve the client base. And
all Canadians by getting out here. Absolutely.
And we talk about serving. CWC, you're doing
more than a trust business. Do you want to mention
some of the other streams you've got? I know
Longhouse, there was a relationship agreement
just announced recently with Longhouse Capital,
who are a brand new private equity firm looking
to... raise money and invest in Indigenous communities,
and CIBC is going to support that initiative.
But what else is going on? We're really proud
of that initiative that we've entered into with
Longhouse Capital. I think it takes participation
from different service providers across the market.
in order to fully service the needs of Indigenous
people. And we don't ever pretend to be everything
that that demographic needs. And so these partnerships
are a huge part of how we can make sure that
those services are available and being delivered
in an equitable way to Indigenous communities.
And so we're really proud of the work that Longhouse
is doing and our partnership with them. Of course,
we also have a number of other initiatives that...
We advance outside of the business. I believe
in leading with business. I think primarily we're
a financial services firm, that the best thing
that we can do to advance economic reconciliation
is to look at how we provide financial products
and services and whether it works for Indigenous
communities. And if we can figure that out, we're
moving in the right direction. But there are
other issues that need to be addressed. Financial
literacy, for example. We have, like most banks,
a huge commitment to increasing financial literacy
and capacity at all levels in the Indigenous
community, whether that's financial literacy
for young people who maybe have never had to
budget before or manage their first credit card.
whether it's financial literacy training at more
of a professional level for the leadership in
First Nations communities. Maybe it's the finance
office at the band. Maybe it's financial literacy
for elders who are living on a fixed income with
the rising costs of everything, might be struggling
to budget. The needs are different. The education
that is needed is also different. And of course,
we have initiatives on recruitment. As I just
mentioned, it's a passion for me. I take it as
a personal commitment to see an increase in the
number of Indigenous people that we have on our
team. At CIBC, we support a number of scholarships
and bursaries specifically for Indigenous students
in an effort to increase. our attractiveness,
both as an industry and as a specific employer
at CIBC. And I think we're doing great things.
I do. But there's more work to be done. There's
always more work to be done. Great initiatives.
Jamie Lickers, great to see you back in London.
And thank you again for yours and CIBC's support
of our summit. It was great to talk to you. We
could have gone on, but we're almost out of time.
So we just want to thank you again. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. It's great to
meet you at the summit and opportunity to speak
to you again. There's a lot of exciting things
that are going and you've crossed over from legal
to financial services. Wow. Well, we'll continue
the conversation next year. Super. Thank you.
Thank you, guys. Thank you to Jamie Lickers for
sharing her insights with us. And thank you for
viewing and listening. Be sure to share, subscribe
and leave a review on your favorite podcast channel.
Thanks for listening to Drum Beats. Until next
time.