An agreement was recently made between made the Association of Manitoba Municipalities and the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba called the Community Accord. It involves a cooperation between municipalities and First Nations urban reserves. Long Plain Fist Nation Chief Dennis Meeches explains its nature.

"It's working between municipalities and that includes cities and towns and villages, and working toward partnership to advance urban reserves. It's non-binding. It's mutual cooperation working toward that goal."

Meeches explains the role municipalities have with urban reserves.

"The municipalities and cities, towns and villages have a big role to play when it comes to urban reserves. The First Nations would have to work out a municipal development services agreement amongst each other. And currently we have two in place with the City of Winnipeg and the City of Portage la Prairie. Basically it establishes MDSAs (Municipal Development and Services Agreements) just on services. It's for policing services, and maintenance of our infrastructure. It just kind of gives us a guide to work cooperatively on infrastructure services. Fire Fighting for example is another part of the MDSA's."

He outlines how cooperation like this will definitely increase economic develop all around.

"Our urban reserves are a key to economic development. It's facilitating economic development; creating jobs; creating new revenue streams; creating new companies. If we move at a better pace than we had been, it'll definitely help out the economy. There's no doubt in my mind that it would. It would create jobs for indigenous people, and for everybody, actually, because you're creating a lot of partnerships; you're creating a lot of business arrangements with the business people that are willing to work with First Nations. There's a strong sense that the indigenous population is growing. It's a growing demographic, and they recognize that they need to partner with First Nations, or conduct business and trade with First Nations people. Yes, it's a good thing."