Byron McDonald/sourced from Facebook.

 

For years, Byron McDonald has been troubled by what Canadian real estate professionals aren’t being taught about First Nations reserve lands.

When he entered the real estate industry in 2010, he was surprised to discover that his licensing courses in British Columbia contained almost no information about conducting real estate transactions on reserve lands.

The omission was particularly apparent during his Commercial Trading Practices course.

“The sole reference to doing business on Reserve lands was something to the effect that it is really complicated and to find someone who knows what they are doing if you want to work with Reserve lands,” he recalls.

“At the time there was no content in the licensing curriculum that referenced leasehold interests on reserves.”

More than 15 years later, McDonald believes that knowledge gap remains widespread.

“If you were to describe the average, I would say nearly zero,” he says of Canadian Realtors’ understanding of transactions involving reserve lands.

It’s a problem he hopes to address through the Indigenous Real Estate Association Canada, a member-funded national organization he founded to improve education, communication and advocacy surrounding leasehold interests on First Nations reserve lands.

 

From personal experience to national initiative

 

McDonald’s connection to Indigenous lands extends well beyond his professional career.

Born in Nanaimo, B.C., he grew up primarily on Vancouver Island and Gabriola Island, where his family has roots dating back to the 1860s.

His ancestors include Thomas Degnen, an Irish settler, and Jane Janimetga, sister of Suihelton, the grand chief of Cowichan. The couple settled on Gabriola Island, where Degnen Bay bears the family name.

McDonald says his family maintained connections with Cowichan Tribes over generations and was eventually welcomed back into the community through Cowichan Tribes citizenship after receiving Indian status under Bill S-3.

McDonald began his real estate career in Vancouver as a business broker following a career in sales and marketing. After relocating to Kamloops, he expanded into commercial and industrial real estate, while continuing to provide residential services primarily to existing clients.

In February 2022, he federally incorporated the Indigenous Real Estate Association Canada, initially developing the organization alongside his regular real estate work. Emma Rose and Larry Traverence have since joined him as founding board members.

After several years of groundwork, the association is preparing for a national launch, with membership expected to open this fall and educational programming anticipated in early 2027.

The organization is separate from the Indigenous Realtors Association, which REM reported on last month. The two associations are familiar with each other’s work and have communicated, although their mandates differ.

While the Indigenous Realtors Association focuses on supporting Indigenous Realtors, McDonald’s organization is primarily concerned with education, communication and advocacy surrounding reserve lands.

 

Building competency in Indigenous real estate

 

Education will be central to the association’s work, with plans to develop materials for real estate licensing programs and professional development courses for a range of industries.

McDonald also envisions a national certificate of competency in Indigenous real estate, designed not only for Realtors but also for appraisers, mortgage professionals, lawyers, insurance agents and others involved in property transactions.

Membership won’t be limited to industry professionals. The association will welcome anyone interested in learning more about living, working or conducting business on reserve lands.

The proposed curriculum will cover the technical aspects of transactions on reserve lands, including appraisals, lending, due diligence and how transactions are structured. Participants would also learn to navigate the Indian Land Registry System, generate parcel abstracts and retrieve publicly available survey maps.

The program would include cultural orientation and background on the history of First Nations and reserve lands. McDonald says the goal isn’t to replace education delivered at the local level, but to provide broader context for professionals who have little experience working with reserve lands.

“We really want to empower any of these people to be competent when they approach a First Nation,” he says.

The consequences of insufficient knowledge can be significant.

Establishing a new 99-year lease on reserve land without a land code might take three years, McDonald says, compared with three or four months in some communities with a land code.

For professionals unfamiliar with those distinctions, setting realistic expectations for clients can be difficult.

“These are all sort of really small details that can have very outsized effects on a deal,” he says.

 

Beyond education

 

The association’s ambitions extend beyond professional development.

McDonald also wants to address misconceptions surrounding reserve lands and advocate for greater economic opportunities for First Nations and individual landholders.

He says leasehold interests on reserves can transact at substantial discounts compared with fee simple properties and leasehold interests outside reserves.

Understanding the reasons behind those differences, he believes, could help communities and landholders make better-informed decisions about their property.

The association plans to promote its programs through industry events, outreach to large brokerages and engagement with professionals working in Indigenous real estate.

Individual membership is expected to cost approximately $100, while course fees have yet to be finalized.

For McDonald, the objective is to establish a resource that has been largely missing from Canada’s real estate industry.

“There’s just a lot of work to be done to socialize and help people understand what it means to be on reserve,” he says.