Information Morning Cape Breton

Bernd Christmas

When Bernd Christmas quit his job at a Bay Street law firm to come back to Cape Breton in 1995, Membertou First Nation was in trouble. They had a 1-million dollar deficit on a 4-and-a-half-million dollar budget. The unemployment rate was 95 percent.

By the time Bernd Christmas left: Membertou had a 76-million dollar budget; 45-million dollars in assets; and the number of people employed by the band had grown by more than 2,000 percent.

Bernd resigned as the CEO of Membertou three years ago. He now runs his own law firm in Toronto.

Bernd Christmas  (runs 17:11)