By Pamela Oliva

The Colonial Context of Accounting

Accounting did not emerge in a vacuum. In Canada and other settler states, accounting was a tool of empire—used to catalogue resources, manage land appropriations, and measure the profitability of colonial enterprises.[1]. Financial reporting systems served to control and extract value, embedding ideologies that celebrated accumulation and growth while obscuring the social and environmental costs of these processes.[2] By contrast, Indigenous knowledge systems define wealth as a living relationship between people, land, and spirit. Scholars Dr Marianne Ignace and Chief Dr. Ronald Ignace state that xyemstém, being respectful, is at the core of Secwépemc beliefs about humanity’s relationship with the Land. People, including ancestors, animals, plants, land, sky, and waters are “reciprocally accountable.”[3] Wealth therefore is measured not in ownership, but in reciprocity and care. However, accounting standards such as IFRS, GAAP, PSAB largely ignore these dimensions. They also exclude informal economies—where many Indigenous livelihoods thrive—and fail to capture the social or ecological impacts of economic activity.[4]  This exclusion has real consequences. When Indigenous values are absent from accounting systems, community well-being is often undervalued or rendered invisible. Recognizing and addressing this gap is essential to building capacity that sustains both economic and cultural resilience.[5]

Why Indigenous Representation Matters

Representation within the accounting profession is a cornerstone of reconciliation and capacity building. Indigenous professionals bring vital perspectives that can reshape how financial systems operate in practice. Yet in Ontario, Indigenous people make up about 3% of the population but only 0.4% of Chartered Professional Accountants.[6]  This underrepresentation is not a matter of individual choice—it reflects systemic barriers including limited access to culturally relevant education, financial constraints, and deep-seated mistrust of colonial institutions. Increasing Indigenous representation in accounting strengthens communities’ ability to manage their own financial affairs, support entrepreneurship, and negotiate equitable partnerships. Representation also transforms the profession itself. Indigenous accountants and financial managers infuse their work with values of relational accountability, long-term sustainability, and community benefit. As Wapass and Fiser [7] note, Indigenous finance professionals are “critical for reconciliation and Indigenous self-determination.”

Building Capacity Through Education

Over the past two decades, Indigenous-led organizations have taken major steps to build capacity in financial management and accounting. AFOA Canada has been at the forefront, developing programs that weave together technical financial skills with Indigenous governance and values. Its Certified Aboriginal Financial Manager (CAFM) and Certified Aboriginal Professional Administrator (CAPA) designations, along with partnerships with institutions such as Langara College, have helped hundreds of Indigenous professionals advance in their careers[8]. Similarly, the Indigenous CPA Education Program, created in collaboration between AFOA Alberta, CPA Canada, and the CPA Western School of Business, has made pathways to certification more accessible. The program integrates storytelling, Indigenous case studies, and peer mentorship to create an environment where learners see themselves reflected in the curriculum[9]. These initiatives don’t merely train accountants—they nurture leaders who bridge worlds. They strengthen community governance, support entrepreneurship, and build local capacity for long-term financial wellness. Graduates often return to their communities to manage development corporations, lead band finance departments, or mentor the next generation of Indigenous business professionals.

A Freirean Lens: Education as Liberation

As Paulo Freire (1970)[10] observed, education either functions as an instrument of conformity or as a practice of freedom. His philosophy of critical consciousness—developing awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action—offers a meaningful framework for Indigenous accounting education.

Freire criticized what he called the “banking model” of education, where learners passively receive information. In contrast, he advocated dialogical learning, where knowledge is co-created through conversation and reflection. This aligns naturally with Indigenous pedagogies that value storytelling, experiential learning, and collective wisdom.

Indigenous-led accounting programs exemplify this transformative approach. Rather than merely teaching compliance or technical procedures, they invite participants to connect accounting principles to lived experience and community values. Learning becomes a process of empowerment—transforming a colonial instrument into a vehicle for sovereignty and economic self-determination.

This dialogical model supports reconciliation in practice: education not as assimilation, but as relationship-building grounded in mutual respect and shared purpose.

Innovative Approaches to Wealth Creation

True wealth in Indigenous contexts is multidimensional. It encompasses financial stability but also the flourishing of people, cultures, and lands. For example, the Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia has leveraged its financial governance excellence to expand its business portfolio into fisheries, hospitality, and renewable energy—reinvesting profits into education and social programs.[11] The Osoyoos Indian Band in British Columbia, through its development corporation, has shown how long-term planning and strong financial management can transform a community into a regional economic driver while maintaining cultural integrity.[12] These successes share key principles: disciplined financial stewardship, transparency, reinvestment into community well-being, and the alignment of business goals with cultural values. Accounting plays a central role in each—providing the systems and information that support informed, values-driven decision-making.

Allyship and Transformative Partnerships

Economic transformation is not only the work of Indigenous communities; it also requires non-Indigenous allies who understand that true partnership begins with respect, humility, and shared power. At Humanity Financial Management, we advocate for reframing financial capacity as an expression of sovereignty—the right and ability to manage economic affairs based on community-defined priorities.

For allies, this means listening first, adapting traditional accounting practices, and co-developing financial systems that reflect Indigenous realities. Transformative partnerships are grounded not in charity but in equity—acknowledging the expertise that Indigenous leaders bring to financial governance. When professional accountants, educators, and community leaders collaborate on equal footing, accounting becomes a vehicle for empowerment rather than control.

The Five Stages of Financial Wellness for Social Purpose Organizations.

At Humanity Financial Management we anchor all our work in a developmental framework we call the Five Stages of Financial Wellness for Social Purpose Organizations.  We seek to pay attention to the language utilized in the framework by engaging in mutually beneficial and transformative partnerships to critique and refine the methodology. A recent MOU with Tiičma Enterprises, to work in partnership and share knowledge, is an example of how we challenge ourselves to do differently, to ask, not how Indigenous experience fits into accounting – but how accounting itself can evolve through Indigenous leadership and perspectives.

The Five Stages of Financial Wellness posits that there is a clear roadmap to build the necessary capacity required to transition from utilizing financial information as simply a tool for compliance to one that drives mission, vision and impact as defined by the organization or Nation themselves.

Each stage – Financial Crisis, Fragility, Stability, Strength and Abundance, describes a stage of financial health and growth. In the model, organizations start by meeting urgent financial needs and gradually build capacity to use their financial infrastructure (people, systems, tools and data) strategically. Importantly, this model is framed as a developmental pathway with organizations following the stages sequentially, building on each prior step.

A very brief overview of the type of projects undertaken in each stage is provided:

1. Financial Crisis: Basic bookkeeping practices, budgets, timely and accurate financial reporting.
2. Financial Fragility: Effective and efficient financial systems that leverage technology, finance team roles and responsibilities, policies and procedures.
3. Financial Stability: Tailored reporting to meet different user groups, financial literacy throughout organization, multi-year financial modelling
4. Financial Strength: Design revenue diversification strategies, design fund development strategies, design financial risk measurements frameworks, design metrics that matter.
5. Financial Abundance: Impact measurement frameworks, ongoing strategic financial stewardship, implement strategies designed in Stage Four Financial Strength.

The Five Stages of Financial Wellness aims to break a cycle often observed in many finance teams regardless of industry, oscillating between “Financial Crisis” and “Financial Fragility” and unable to transition to utilizing financial information strategically, driving mission, vision and self-defined priorities.

The framework recognizes that the final stages—strength and abundance—extend beyond conventional accounting success. They represent financial sovereignty, where communities define prosperity on their own terms and where financial wellness is not only about money—it is about meaning, confidence, and capacity.

Accounting Beyond the Numbers: Making the Invisible Visible

Accounting’s colonial heritage has long dictated who is counted and what counts as value. By moving beyond the numbers, accounting can become a language of reconciliation, guiding communities toward economic justice, collective well-being, and enduring success. In the words of James Baldwin: ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced’.

[1] Neu, Dean E. (1999) “Discovering Indigenous peoples: Accounting and the machinery of empire,” Accounting Historians Journal: Vol. 26 : Iss. 1 , Article 5

[2] Alawattage, C. (2011). The calculative reproduction of social structures. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 22 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2010.12.006

[3] Hageman, Anya and Pauline Galoustian (2024). Economic Aspects of the Indigenous Experience in Canada, 2nd edition. Kingston, Ontario: Queens University Library. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/indigenouseconomics244

[4] International Labour Organization. (2018). Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture (3rd ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119510540.ch2

[5] Hammond, T., et al. (2009). Accounting and the political economy of race. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 20(6), 633–658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2008.07.007

[6] CPA Ontario. (2024, February 16). Accounting for Indigenous representation in the profession. https://www.cpaontario.ca/insights/blog/accounting-for-indigenous-representation-in-the-profession

[7] Wapass, J., & Fiser, A. (2022). Indigenous finance and management professionals: Critical for reconciliation and Indigenous self-determination. Conference Board of Canada.

[8] AFOA Canada & Langara College. (2025, March 12). AFOA and Langara’s impact on Indigenous professionals. https://langara.ca/news-events/stories/pathways-success-afoa-and-langaras-impact-indigenous-professionals

[9] CPA Canada. (2023, July 6). New CPA education program reflects Indigenous reality. https://www.cpacanada.ca/news/Accounting/The-Profession/indigenous-designed-CPA-program

[10] Freire, Paulo. 2017. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Modern Classics. London, England: Penguin Classics

[11] https://www.fngovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/AR_Membertou.pdf

[12] https://fngovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ER_Osoyoos.pdf