Maclab Development Group creates $50k endowment for Indigenous students

It’s common knowledge that the University of Alberta sits atop traditional Indigenous lands, but few know that the historic neighbourhood bordering North Campus — Garneau — is named for an entrepreneurial Indigenous couple who helped build Edmonton. 

“The memory of Eleanor and Laurent Garneau is very much part of Edmonton and is memorialized in the naming of the neighbourhood,” says Marc de La Bruyère, principal and managing director of Maclab Development Group. 

“I’ve long been an admirer of theirs,” he says.

Recently, the company constructed a two-tower apartment and student housing development in Garneau and chose to name the towers in honour of the Métis couple (one tower is named “The Laurent” and the other “The Eleanor”). As the project wrapped up this summer, de La Bruyère and his team saw another opportunity to honour the legacy of the Garneaus — as well as the university’s contributions to the business world — with a new award for Indigenous students.

Created with a $50,000 endowment to the Alberta School of Business, The Maclab-Garneau Indigenous Award in Accounting and Finance will support Indigenous students in either accounting or finance. de La Bruyère notes that there is a dearth of Indigenous finance professionals and looks to the scholarship to help fill the need.

 “My impression is that over the years, we’ve been doing a better job of empowering Indigenous education in some sectors, such as law, education and medicine, but we need more focus in other areas, specifically finance,” he says.

Naming the scholarship after the Garneau’s is fitting as the Métis couple from Manitoba were successful entrepreneurs and business leaders, says de La Bruyère. They arrived on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River in 1874, where they built a house, raised children and farmed the land. The couple also became entrepreneurs, selling wood, coal, fur, land and food, and community builders who built a strong relationship with the nearby Papachase First Nation and organized social events for the growing community.

de la Bruyère’s family has long been affiliated with leadership and philanthropy within the U of A. His wife, Stacy Schiff, recently received an honorary degree from the U of A for her contributions to the fields of history and biography, and he has held several positions within university governance and advisory councils, most notably as a member of the university's Board of Governors for a decade.

Although de la Bruyère is not a U of A alumnus, he has always appreciated the university’s long standing role in shaping the city economically and culturally. 

“One of the main reasons why my father and his business partner picked Edmonton to move to in 1952 was the U of A,” he says. “Both families have been close to the university ever since.”