A new building project between File Hills Qu’Appelle (FHQ) Developments LP and Farm Credit Canada (FCC) will focus on building a greenhouse to provide food security and supply traditional medicines for Indigenous communities.

FCC will be pitching in $250,000 to help finance the project. They’ll also be partnering with FHQ Developments to find more business ventures and strengthen relationships with surrounding Indigenous communities.

The announcement for the construction of the greenhouse was made Friday afternoon from the First Nations University of Canada in Regina.

At the event were representatives from the government and organizations including Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale on behalf of Minister of Agriculture Marie-Claude Bibeau.

While the focus of the greenhouse will be to supply herbs and food for residents, it will also create jobs and revenue through sales to local stores and restaurants, and provide training opportunities.

Murray Ironchild, who works out of the White Raven Healing Centre in Fort Qu’Appelle for the File Hills Tribal Council, led a pipe ceremony prior to the announcement at the university.

He explained how this greenhouse will provide better access for Indigenous people in the province.

“Educating people who are interested if they get turned off by the travelling and have to leave home for a week or so,” said Ironchild. “This way it’s going to be right there and then we can do the educating part there.”

Hoffort (bottom left) and Benjoe (bottom right) shake hands after signing the partnership on Friday from FNUC in Regina, SK. (Photo: Moises Canales/620 CKRM)

President and CEO of FHQ Developments Thomas Benjoe and FCC president and CEO Michael Hoffort took part in two ceremonies on Friday to make the agreement official: a pipe ceremony followed by putting pen to paper with a photo op.

When speaking on how this partnership between the two sides came to be, Hoffort said the conversation sparked when FHQ Developments expressed interest in moving towards an agriculture project – specifically a greenhouse environment.

“It’s exactly the type of project we were looking to sponsor and to be involved in,” he said. “It was a fairly rapid case once we saw we had common interests and a common vision of where we wanted to go.”

Once FHQ tribal chief Edmund Bellegarde had the opportunity to speak to the crowd at Friday’s event, he touched on how critical this project will be to pass on knowledge to younger generations once it’s complete.

For him, the importance of the greenhouse is ensuring youth have a more sustainable future, which includes food sovereignty.

“It’ll be a space for our young people to understand how our traditional medicines are prepared, how they’re grown, where they come from, but also how they’re used with their healing properties.”

No start or completion dates or location for the greenhouse have been confirmed, but those details will be released in the coming months.

Five Hills Qu’Appelle Developments is owned by the File Hills Tribal Council which represents 11 First Nations in Treaty Four here in Saskatchewan.