Saskatchewan First Nation brews up Tim Hortons franchise

FORT QU’APPELLE, Sask. – A new business is brewing on a Saskatchewan reserve near Fort Qu’Appelle. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Monday as Little Black Bear First Nation officially opened its own Tim Hortons franchise and a new Petro-Canada gas station.

“This is the first Tim Hortons franchise in the province that’s located on-reserve,” said Elizabeth Jordan, national director of aboriginal markets at RBC Royal Bank.

Little Black Bear First Nation Chief Clarence Bellegarde says it all started in 2005 with a plan focused on creating economic stability for the community through the development of new businesses.

READ MORE: Joint task force making headway on aboriginal outcomes in Sask.

“This was part of a long process of developing and an economic development plan for that community, that the First Nation embarked upon 10 years ago,” said Jordan.

“In this case, we came in to finance once Petro-Can and Tim Hortons had already agreed with the First Nation on their business terms.”

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“We had some discussions with a number of banks and RBC, being one of them, we understood that they had an aboriginal branch, dealing with aboriginal business from their side of it,” said Bellegarde.

Today, under one roof sits a Petro-Can and in the other half of the building is a full-service Timmy’s ready for hungry travellers on Highway 10.

“We own both of them … they’re sitting on reserve land,” said Bellegarde.

The aboriginal-owned businesses have created jobs and are generating revenue for the community.

READ MORE: Tim Hortons launches Canadian ‘Ehmoji’ keyboard

“We want to continue building capacity and create wealth for our First Nation, so we’re going to be looking at the business development and we’ll be using certainly a lot of this as equity injection into new businesses and it will also go to unfunded programs at the reserve level, programs that are sorely needed for our youth, for our elders,” said Bellegarde.

“It brings a sense of pride to our people, knowing that we can do this, knowing that we have partners that are willing to partner up with us to create business opportunities like this.”

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Bellegarde says the apple fritters and steeped tea at their local Tim Hortons aren’t too bad either.