PAR - Progressive Aboriginal Relations
What is PAR?
How PAR works
How to get started
Companies in PAR

What is PAR?

The PAR award, designed by Susan Point of Coast Salish Arts

PAR, or Progressive Aboriginal Relations, is the first program of its kind in the world. Its purpose is to help organizations gauge and improve their commitment to Aboriginal relations, and to earn the right to use a hallmark to demonstrate their achievements.

How will it benefit my business?

PAR will help you to engage Aboriginals as employees, partners, customers, suppliers, and community representatives. Your business can be enriched by the skills, energy, and culture of Canada’s fastest growing demographic.

How will it benefit Aboriginal Canada?

Your organization will create long-term benefits for the Aboriginal community when you implement the PAR program. Individual Aboriginals will gain from training, education, and employment opportunities. Aboriginal companies will benefit as partners and suppliers. And the whole community will be enriched by ties of friendship and mutual respect and the transfer of skills and knowledge.

Who is
implementing PAR?

They include some of the most established names in corporate Canada. Their fields of operation range from Bay Street boardrooms to Arctic mines. They all have one thing in common: they’ve earned the PAR hallmark, and the trust of Canada’s Aboriginal communities. These are just some of them.

Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries

BMO Financial Group

Cameco

Canada Post Operations Division

Diavik Diamond Mines

EnCana

ESS Support Services Worldwide

IBM

Manitoba Lotteries Corporation

SaskTel

Scotiabank

Sodexho

Syncrude

WWF

Xerox

What is involved?

Implementing PAR is a process of change, and it requires some work. You will have to examine your organization from top to bottom, build on what you’re doing right, and establish where there are opportunities for improvement in your relations with Aboriginal people and communities. You’ll have to decide how to weave your corporate commitment throughout the fabric of the organization; how to enlist the commitment of your managers and employees; and how to assess your corporate performance and measure results.

Why is PAR necessary?

The Aboriginal sector is growing in educational and employment capacity, technical skills, purchasing power, and control over land and resources. Canada’s Aboriginal people and communities want their fair share of wealth and prosperity– and they want to work with companies that are prepared to enter into mutually beneficial business relationships. PAR will help you to build those relationships.

What’s the bottom line?

There is a solid business case for implementing Progressive Aboriginal Relations. PAR rewards companies for demonstrating continuous improvement in their engagement with the Aboriginal community as they move through the various levels of the program. PAR is a roadmap for win-win relationships where corporations gain in profit, goodwill, and human resources while Aboriginal communities are enriched by development, trade, and communication.

Next: How PAR works

250 The Esplanade, Suite 204
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1J2
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Phone: 416-961-8663
Fax: 416-961-3995
Email: info@ccab.com