Shaping the Next Chapter: CEO Address

Aaniin,

I greet you all in a good and respectful way. It’s been just over 7-months of work at ZMAL and we’ve been busy working toward operational efficiency and finding ways to vertically integrate our businesses. We have increased Indigenous employment to over 60% in our overall operations, we are continuously searching for Zagime members to join our team. We’ve invested on improvements of our current building assets and have several major projects that will be announced publicly in the near future, expanding and diversifying our business portfolio of ZMAL.

In September, we started building a new addition at our Esso/Tim Horton’s location of two 1100 sq/ft bays and 8,800 sq/ft of First Nation office space. We’re developing “Sage Meadow”, over 200 acres on the west end of Regina. We encourage people to check out our website, www.zmal.ca and fill out an application. The goal here is to be one of the most sustainable developments, building smarter, and reducing reliance on external infrastructure.

The opportunity and chance to become a mighty Nation, add generational value, and to improve the long-term health and well-being of our Nation, for the current and future generations. I wish for our members to encourage our young people to get involved and build the skills needed to support the work, for both the pride of where they come from, and purpose of who they are doing it for. We will be investing in revitalizing our language and culture, establishing a “Land, Language, and Culture Trust” for those interested in doing the work to revitalize our relationship with the land, our language, and our culture.

We understand how the government systematically took our people from being self-sustaining Nations to dependent Nations and people, we need to address the wrongs of these dependencies and systematically reverse the process and strive to become self-sustaining once again. I’ve said for years to both government and industry, that we have 100-150 years of catch–up to do, economically, on top of the fact we’ve been swindled, sabotaged and outright stolen from, so we need to be united in moving things forward in a good and efficient way.

In our journey to become a sovereign Treaty Nation.

We require professionals, engineers, lawyers, office admin, technicians, and many skilled-trade workers, operators, and really a small army to do the work likely for the next 15 to 20 years.

We’re establishing partnerships with educational organizations like SIIT, FNEC, SIAST and other companies to meet these demands.

Financial literacy will be implemented with skills training, where incentives are offered when milestones are achieved. SIIT appreciated this idea so much they’re working on implementing it as part of their programming.

The fact is technology, and development is here to stay, we need to be strategic in the way we educate our young people for the world that is already here. We have to lead it, build it, and service it, our way.

I pray to see our people and Nation thrive, adding generational value not just to our Nation and our people, but to society. It will take effort and commitment where we must be respectful, be open to listening and learning. Ultimately, breaking free from that mentality of“What can my Nation do for me”, but live to say “What can I do for my Nation.”

Respectfully,