Reimagining Canada’s Financial Services Sector Through Indigenous Reconciliation Action Planning

What can Canada’s economy gain when capital markets steward the priorities, histories, and experiences of Indigenous peoples? What type of inclusive and mutually prosperous futures can be nurtured when the financial services sector incorporates reconciliation into its purpose, and recognizes the growing presence of the Indigenous economy, now projected to reach a valuation of $100 billion?

TMX Group, owner and operator of global markets, including Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange and Montreal Exchange, set out to establish the foundation for its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) to tackle these big questions and ensure its reconciliation commitments are turned into an actionable roadmap that drives business value and socioeconomic progress.

Over a five-month period, Coeuraj worked with TMX Group to initiate its RAP journey across in-person and virtual engagements.

Coeuraj leveraged its experiences navigating Indigenous reconciliation in Canada, financial services expertise, policy knowledge, and scenario planning capabilities that together, provided TMX Group with an integrated, strategic approach to Reconciliation Action Planning.

A critical component of this journey was an immersive two-day session that Coeuraj delivered to 18 leaders across TMX Group that was sponsored by the CEO and included members of its C-Suite. Using strategic foresight methodologies to blend design, strategy, and forecasting, participants explored trends shaping reconciliation and public markets. They were presented with a set of custom-made written narratives, referred to as “scenario vignettes,” that invited them to consider multiple, thought-provoking futures that could exist in the year 2050. Working back from these future states, these vignettes enabled participants to look beyond assumptions and take a wide lens when considering alternative outcomes, understanding risks, and prioritizing the most high-impact business opportunities to pursue.

At the end of this session, participants defined the guiding philosophy for reconciliation at TMX Group; built a shared understanding of how the company can be a leader in economic reconciliation; identified priority actions, policies, and milestones to advance and measure progress towards the company’s shared vision, as well as established how these potential actions can be embedded within the company’s business strategy.

Reconciliation can take a variety of pathways and forms, and will transform the ways that businesses, investors, and markets will function. The first step to preparing well for this change is to meet people where they are at.

In the lead up to this capstone session, Coeuraj conducted 1:1 interviews with all participants to explore where each person stood in their own reconciliation journeys and how this reflected the company’s collective understanding of reconciliation. For some, advancing reconciliation was already a part of their personal and professional operating models while for others, this work was new and they had yet to have exposure to learning experiences.

With this insight in hand, Coeuraj provided virtual and in-person opportunities for participants to gain foundational knowledge around reconciliation and histories of economic oppression, and ensured that these experiences centered the voices of Indigenous peoples and was delivered in collaboration with them.

These touchpoints included two fireside chats. The first fireside chat invited the TMX Group team to hear from three Indigenous economic development leaders with diverse perspectives and roles within the sector, and the second brought the team together with two local financial services leaders from the Huron-Wendat First Nation prior to our final in-person session, which the Nation generously hosted on its land.

Ultimately, Coeuraj created the conditions for TMX Group to foster its own next steps on the path towards a formal Reconciliation Action Plan, while cultivating further curiosity, capacity, and commitment in its leaders to sustain this work.

While working with Coeuraj, TMX Group was publicly recognized as a “Top 10 to Watch” company by Indigenomics, a leading Indigenous economic institution. Following our collaboration, TMX Group achieved phase 1 of its Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR) Certification through the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Businesses.

Today, TMX Group has a group of internal leaders — now working together as a unified community — committed to embedding Indigenous reconciliation into the fabric of the financial services sector in Canada today and into the future.