Indigenous take active role in big projects
Communities now starting to take lead, pursue equity participation in developments
Amajor global bond and credit rating company says Canada should expect to see more Indigenous communities becoming key players in big infrastructure projects.
A report released last week by Moody’s takes a dive into the shifting landscape of Indigenous involvement in projects ranging from hydro transmission lines to roads, bridges and airports. The report found that First Nations, Inuit and Métis people are increasingly involved not just as stakeholders but as players in big projects, and that trend is likely to continue.
“I was quite surprised to find how many projects had Indigenous involvement,” said Catherine Deluz, a senior vice-president at Moody’s and the report’s lead author.
In the past, communities tended to be included in projects only as the recipients of impact benefit agreements. For example, a company looking to build a pipeline might negotiate with an affected First Nation for access to its land in exchange for certain benefits, but the communities themselves tended to be more passive players — waiting to be consulted and turning to the courts to block projects if they felt they’d been ignored.
While that paradigm certainly still exists in some cases — especially in resource extraction industries such as mining — Deluz said many communities are starting to take the lead.
“Now we see equity participation and, in some cases, even an increased role in terms of developing their own projects and inviting the private sector to work with them,” Deluz said.
That shift is hastened by the evolving legal landscape as well, Deluz said. Recent Supreme Court rulings on issues, such as seismic testing in Clyde River, Nunavut, and Enbridge’s proposed Line 9 expansion through the Chippewas of the Thames territory, are helping to clarify the government and industry players duties to consult and accommodate Indigenous communities.
Deluz’s report points to the Wataynikaneyap Transmission project as a leading example of this new approach.
That project, a partnership between 20 northwestern Ontario First Nations and FortisOntario, aims to see an ambitious 1,800 kilometres of new hydro lines connect 17 remote First Nations to the provincial power grid. The project is lead by the First Nations and includes an option for them to buy out FortisOntario and own 100 per cent of the project once it’s completed.
While the Moody’s report paints a relatively rosy picture of the future for Indigenous infrastructure projects, it also highlighted at least one potential stumbling block: The difficulty Indigenous communities’ face in raising the capital or attracting investors needed to fund major projects.