Results of the business relationships are well-documented. A survey by Thompson’s alliance of oil sands developers puts the value of contracts with aboriginal companies between 1998 and 2006 at $2 billion. Annual industry payments to native enterprises have increased from about $50 million in 1998 to $400 million in 2006 and $606 million in 2007. The number of aboriginal people directly employed by the oil sands industry in permanent jobs in the Wood Buffalo region has doubled in that time.

“First Nations are within their rights to protect their rights,” Thompson says. “That’s fundamental. But what I think you will find is that business and protection of First Nations rights don’t conflict.”

At an autumn oil sands trade show in Edmonton, a young aboriginal woman – a Mikisew Cree counterpart to Chief Boucher’s daughter – is working a booth promoting Mikisew Air and other companies owned by her band. She beckons to visitors and talks about the Mikisew Group of Companies, an organization of band-owned businesses arising out of oil sand development, and advertises flights from Edmonton to Fort McMurray. Her persona and what she is promoting underlines the complexity and the seeming contradiction of her band’s proposed moratorium on development.

Asked what kind of money the companies she is representing are pulling in on an annual basis, April-Eve Wiberg answers: millions. In the case of Mikisew Energy Services Group, which provides oil sand-specific services – from workers to maintenance and environmental services – she says it is many millions. The profits from these companies go into general band revenue and are distributed among community and social services as well as shareholders.

When pressed for an explanation for the paradox of opposing development while simultaneously profiting from it, Poitras sighs and cites the socio-economic reality of Fort Chipewyan’s residents.
“The leadership does recognize that there is an opportunity and a great need to, in one way or another, participate in the development of the tar sands because we have a high unemployment rate, we have low education levels and many of our people need to be trained.”

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