Indigenous Business Studies (INBU) 330

Overview

This course will develop your understanding of Indigenous issues in Canada introduced in INBU 201 and deepen your understanding of how law, specifically public law, impacts Indigenous Peoples and business.

Indigenous business law is a unique combination of public and private law, primarily because businesses dance between managing their relationship with government, managing liability and risk, and managing their relationships with customers or clients in the market. Businesses are also impacted by community infrastructure and institutions that encourage entrepreneurship and economic development. This course will provide a foundation in business law for Indigenous Peoples in Canada that will guide your understanding and interpretation throughout your future studies and business careers.

This course will introduce the Canadian judicial system and administrative processes, with an emphasis on those aspects that are especially relevant for Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous territories, including particular rights and governance structures that are not common for the rest of Canada. The substantive areas of law that are of a special interest to Indigenous business will be grounded in the context of the Indigenous-settler relationship and presented in the context of Indigenous ways of knowing.

For more about this course and its approach, see the Course Overview.

Outline

Unit 1: The Foundations of Law in Canada

• Lesson 1: We Are Story; That Is All We Are One
• Lesson 2: Canadian Constitutional Foundations: The Living Tree
• Lesson 3: The Canadian Judicial System

Unit 2: Resistance and Reconciliation

• Lesson 4: Indigenous-Settler Relations
• Lesson 5: Indigenous Self-Governance
• Lesson 6: We Are Indigenous

Unit 3: Administrative Law and Indigenous Business

• Lesson 7: Aboriginal Law, Rights and Title
• Lesson 8: Administrative Law in Canada
• Lesson 9: Duty to Consult and Accommodate

Unit 4: Business Administration and the Common Law

• Lesson 10: Economic Development and First Nations
• Lesson 11: Business Law and Administration
• Lesson 12: Indigenous Business and Financial Issues

Evaluation

Your final grade in INBU 330 is determined by a weighted average of the grades you receive on four written assignments. To receive credit for INBU 330, you must achieve a minimum overall grade of D (50 percent) or better for the entire course.

The weightings for each assignment are as follows:

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.

Materials

Digital course materials

Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:

Willes, J. A., & Willes, J. H. (2020). Contemporary Canadian business law (12^th ed.). McGraw-Hill ISBN: 9781259654893

Physical course materials

The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:

Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP. (2018). Aboriginal law handbook (5^th ed.). Carswell. ISBN: 9780779886500

Other resources

All other learning resources will be available online.

Most lessons include additional readings or other resources, such as videos, as required course components. These resources are from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, and, in keeping with the Indigenous principle of knowing through experience, many videos present events as fundamental examples of the Indigenous-settler relationship.

There are also supplementary resources presented to provide further context or exploration for the topic of each lesson. These are optional, but you may find them helpful to draw from as you prepare your assignments.

Important links

• Academic advising
• Program planning
• Request assistance
• Support services