Ottawa, Canada-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy (MLI) was named one of six finalists for this year's prestigious $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award for its Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy Project. Through this project, MLI has made the case that Indigenous engagement in the booming Canadian resource economy provides a once-in-a-century opportunity to set right the fundamental inequalities within Canadian life.
“I am immensely proud that MLI has put unlocking prosperity for the Indigenous people of Canada at the forefront of its work,” said Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of MLI. “For too long Aboriginal people have been forced by government policy to live outside the institutions that confer opportunity on everyone else. Our Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy Project aims instead to bring Aboriginal communities into the economic mainstream while giving them more power and authority over their own lives and ensuring that development takes place in a way that is respectful of the environment and Indigenous priorities.”
Within the Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy Project, MLI has partnered with a 12-person Aboriginal advisory team composed of reform-minded Aboriginal business leaders, lawyers, economists, public policy analysts, and other types of scholars to inform and oversee its work, which has given the project greater resonance in Aboriginal communities. Through its advocacy of strategies such as revenue-sharing agreements, legal certainty, and frameworks for Aboriginal equity investment, MLI’s project to improve the lives of Aboriginal Canadians through market-based solutions is having a strong impact, winning widespread buy-in not only from Aboriginal and business communities but also from the Canadian government.
"Beyond its obvious positive consequences inside Canada, MLI's work with Aboriginal communities is potentially a model for others around the world,” said Atlas Network CEO Brad Lips. “Too often, governments have created dependency among populations that would benefit most from economic engagement. MLI's project shows a constructive way forward."
What: MLI’s Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy Project named one of six finalists for Atlas Network's prestigious $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award
When: Nov. 8, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner closing ceremony – Capitale, 130 Bowery, New York, NY 10013 (Bowery and Grand St.)
Press Contact: Daniel.Anthony@AtlasNetwork.org or 202-449-8441
Awarded since 2004, the Templeton Freedom Award is named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise, and the public policies that encourage prosperity, innovation, and human fulfillment via free competition. The award is generously supported by Templeton Religion Trust and will be presented during Atlas Network's Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner gala dinner ceremony Nov. 8, 2017 in New York City. The winning organization will receive a $100,000 prize and the runners-up will each receive $25,000.
The 2017 Templeton Freedom Award finalists are:
- Beacon Center of Tennessee (Nashville, Tenn., United States) – “Tackle the Hall Tax” project
- Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) (Norcross, Ga., United States) – “Prisoner Reentry Initiative”
- IMANI Center for Policy and Education (Accra, Ghana) – “IMANIFesto” initiative
- Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies (IEE) (Porto Alegre, Brazil) – Fórum da Liberdade
- Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) (Mexico City, Mexico) – “Anticorruption Reform Initiative for Mexico, 3for3”
- Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy (MLI) (Ottawa, Canada) – "Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy” project
About MLI
Based in Ottawa, Canada, Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy (MLI) seeks to be the thought leader on national issues in Canada and to prod governments, opinion leaders, and the general public to accept nothing but the very best public policy solutions for the challenges Canada faces. MLI is founded on the belief that ideas matter, that Canada requires thoughtful and research-based policy, and that the engagement of the public in extended debates about major national issues is fundamental to the future of democracy and governance in Canada.
About Atlas Network
Washington-based Atlas Network is a nonprofit organization that strengthens the worldwide freedom movement by connecting more than 470 independent partners in over 90 countries that share the vision of a free, prosperous, and peaceful world where limited governments defend the rule of law, private property, and free markets.
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/192228d6-b30e-4ead-8aaa-6c0818f76ebe
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0d7df257-5f91-4d9e-b063-537c3a9045b3