LEADERSHIP
Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson
Founder & President, RMD Group
Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson is an Indigenous leader, entrepreneur, author, and respected business visionary whose career has helped shape both the Okanagan's economic landscape and the broader conversation around Indigenous economic development in Canada.
As the founder and President of RMD Group, Grand Chief Derrickson spent decades curating a diverse portfolio of lifestyle and commercial properties, including a Shelter Bay Marina, Two Eagles Golf Course, West Eagle Campground, numerous industrial and commercial developments, and mobile home communities. Widely recognized as one of the most successful Indigenous entrepreneurs in Canada, he is known for his strategic thinking, resilience, and ability to recognize opportunity long before others.
Born and raised on the Westbank reserve in British Columbia, Grand Chief Derrickson’s early life was grounded in hard work and determination. Before entering leadership and business, he worked as a fruit picker, welder, and rancher. In the 1960s, he began launching a series of businesses that would eventually grow into large diversified Canadian and international holdings under RMD Group.
In 1976, he was first elected Chief of the Westbank First Nation. Over the next decade, he helped lead the community through a remarkable period of economic transformation, taking it from one of the poorest bands in British Columbia to one of the most economically successful. Throughout his leadership, he became known for his independent thinking, strong advocacy, and commitment to creating long-term economic opportunity for Indigenous communities.
Grand Chief Derrickson was elected Chief of Westbank First Nation six times and later received the title of Grand Chief from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs in recognition of his lifetime of political and economic leadership.
In addition to his accomplishments in business and governance, Grand Chief Derrickson is also an award-winning author. He co-authored the internationally recognized books Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call and Reconciliation Manifesto with the late Arthur Manuel. Both books received widespread acclaim for their contributions to the national conversation on Indigenous rights, reconciliation, and economic justice.
His memoir, Fight or Submit: Standing Tall in Two Worlds, chronicles his experiences navigating leadership, business, and Indigenous politics in Canada. He is also the author of Westbank Millionaire, a memoir, an Indigenous rights manifesto, and an entrepreneurial success story rolled into one. His latest book, Ukrainian Scorpions, chronicles his experiences fighting for justice in Ukraine's political and diplomatic spheres.
Over the course of his life, Grand Chief Derrickson has faced extraordinary challenges and scrutiny while continuing to build businesses, fight for Indigenous self-determination, and create opportunities for future generations. He has given millions of dollars in support of Indigenous artists, writers, and activists fighting for both land rights within Canada and internationally.
Grand Chief Derrickson continues to pursue forward-thinking investments and developments rooted in long-term value, community growth, and entrepreneurial excellence.
Ukrainian Scorpions
2023 | ECW Press
Award-winning author Grand Chief Ron Derrickson tells the story of his personal fight against Ukrainian political and economic forces alongside the larger story of the wider struggle for Ukraine to end the corruption that has plagued the country since the 1990s
Ron Derrickson watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country where he had spent much of the past 20 years, with a kind of anguish, knowing the country had been systematically shut out of the EU and left on its own. While doing business there, he had entered the rabbit hole of Ukrainian political and economic life, a land where gangsters controlled not only the heights of the economy but also the police, the courts, and the national parliament. At stake was his $28 million company stolen by a cast of characters that included a former governor and members of the national parliament.
In the end, Derrickson spent a dozen years fighting for justice in the courts, in political and diplomatic spheres, and even with automatic weapon-toting mercenaries. Ukranian Scorpions tells not only the story of his personal battles but the much wider struggle of Ukraine to find its footing and shake off the gangsterism that has plagued it since the 1990s. In the end, Derrickson searches for signs that after the recent cataclysm, a new Ukraine might rise from the ashes.
Fight or Submit
2020 | ECW Press
In mid-August, 1982, I was interviewed by the local paper and I pointed with some alarm at the growing anti-Native sentiment in the Okanagan that was dominating the white media and really getting out of hand. The article, entitled ‘Anti-Native Mood Hovers Over Okanagan,’ described the ‘vicious attacks’ against me personally in the local media. I tried to dampen the flames by admitting that my own fierce commitment to my band and to band autonomy may have contributed to that mood. But I told them that when I took over, the band was $3 million in debt and we were in danger of sliding back into abject poverty. I had to act decisively and all I was asking was that non-Indians who were living on Indian land comply with the law. Unfortunately, I said, too many whites were repulsed even by the thought of being governed by Indians.
By early summer, 1982, a much more dramatic scheme than framing me for a crime was put in place. A number of the trailer park owners had gotten together to decide that if the authorities would not bring me down then they would have to take matters into their own hands. And one of them came up with a plan.
The Reconciliation Manifesto
2017 | Lorimer
In this book, leading Indigenous rights activist Arthur Manuel offers a radical challenge to Canada and Canadians. He questions virtually everything non-Indigenous Canadians believe about their relationship with Indigenous peoples.
The Reconciliation Manifesto documents how governments are attempting to reconcile with Indigenous peoples without touching the basic colonial structures that dominate and distort the relationship. Manuel reviews the current state of land claims, tackles the persistence of racism among non-Indigenous people and institutions, decries the role of government-funded organizations like the Assembly of First Nations, and highlights the federal government's disregard for the substance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while claiming to implement it. Together, these circumstances amount to a false reconciliation between Indigenous people and Canada.
Manuel sets out the steps that are needed to place this relationship on a healthy and honourable setting. As he explains, recovering the land and rebuilding the economy are key.
Completed just months before Manuel's death in January 2017, this book offers an illuminating vision of what is needed for true reconciliation. Expressed with quiet but firm resolve, humour, and piercing intellect, The Reconciliation Manifesto is for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are willing to look at the real problems and find real solutions.
Unsettling Canada
2015 | Between the Lines
As the son of George Manuel, who served as president of the National Indian Brotherhood and founded the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in the 1970s, Arthur Manuel was born into the struggle. From his unique and personal perspective, as a Secwepemc leader and an Indigenous activist who has played a prominent role on the international stage, Arthur Manuel describes the victories and failures, the hopes and the fears of a generation of activists fighting for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada. Unsettling Canada chronicles the modern struggle for Indigenous rights covering fifty years of struggle over a wide range of historical, national, and recent international breakthroughs.
“This is the back story of both grassroots and backroom struggles that created the context in which we find ourselves today, one in which a new generation of First Nations leaders is demanding sovereignty and self-determination, and more and more non-Indigenous Canadians finally understand that huge swaths of this country we call Canada is not ours?or our government?s?to sell.” —Naomi Klein from the Foreword