MARGARET THOMSON.

• Author: GOULIQUER, DIANNE
• Position: Brief Article

Entrepreneur and Community Activist - Thunder Bay

No one can accuse Margaret Thomson of ignoring the opportunity to make a difference when she sees it. After nearly 15 years with the City of Thunder Bay, the Australian-born entrepreneur ventured out an started her own consulting firm, Margaret Thomson International, confident she could initiate change by helping to establish much-needed relationships between the forest industry and First Nations.

"I saw there was a unique opportunity in an area where there was very little work going on," Thomson says of her decision in 1993 to start her own consulting firm. "Most industries hadn't started to work together with First Nations in a meaningful way."

Armed with her experience in organizational reviews, strategic planning, communications and negotiations, along with the First Nations skills and training work she had carried out as a consultant in Edmonton in the 1970s, Thomson set out on a mission to bridge the gap between First Nations and industry in northwestern Ontario.

"I thought (this type of work) was long overdue," she says. "When you consider our future, it's all about community development. I saw it as (something) new and challenging, and there wasn't really anybody doing that relationship work."

Thomson has spent the past eight years working exclusively with forestry companies and First Nations across northwestern Ontario -- a venture that has resulted in new economic development and employment opportunities.

She has worked in various capacities with member First Nations of Treaty #3, Treaty #9 and the Robinson-Superior Treaty of 1850, as well as major forestry companies in the development of partnership initiatives for economic co-operation.

Among her more recent accomplishments is the establishment of the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation's Waabigon Saaga'igan Gitigaan Tree Nursery near Dryden.

The $5.7-million, state-of-the-art tree nursery produces container stock for Bowater and Weyerhaeuser reforestation programs and has created employment for 40 to 50 seasonal workers, in addition to the eight full-time positions at the facility.

In 1997, during the construction of the Ear Falls sawmill, Thomson developed a pre-employment training program for 104 First Nations trainees. This initiative led to a significant number of people gaining employment.

Thompson was also instrumental in the program development of the first-ever Bowater First Nation Rangers Program 2000. The program was aimed at...