First Nations must be treated as economic equals in Canada

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If Canada and its governments want to put their elbows up against the United States, they won’t be able to do it alone. They will need the more than 600 First Nations that can be found from coast to coast to coast to buy in.

As major-projects laws sweep across Canada, making sure First Nations are major partners is no longer just a convenient catchphrase; it reflects the reality. Indigenous knowledge is indispensable for caring for Mother Earth, and in making sure the next seven generations – of all Canadians – know this land, the animals, the water.

Indigenous tokenism doesn’t cut it any more. Minority capital and infrastructure stakes, or installing a single Indigenous person on a board of directors – that’s no longer enough. That isn’t partnership. It’s dominance with a smile.

First Nations today are major economic players, with nearly $120-billion in assets under their management or control. That strength was on full display at the recent First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference. From April 29 to May 1, Toronto’s Sheraton Centre was packed with 1,800 First Nations leaders, global Indigenous royalty and community members – not to mention bankers such as RBC president David McKay, federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, and a slew of titans from the mining industry.

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Mark Podlasly, a member of Nlaka’pamux Nation and the FNMPC’s chief sustainability officer, made clear that Canadian industry needed to treat First Nations as equals, not obstacles. “We won’t be passive people in decisions about our economies,” he said in his opening address to the 186 First Nations the FNMPC now represents. “Look around this room. This is the future.”

Some of the major-projects conversations are going to be uncomfortable, he added. But that is good, because that is the truth of our relationship with Canadian industry, banks and government. Like anyone with a problematic marriage, if you want to stick with it, you’ve got to work through it – but you have to be fair. If not, well, things may end up so bitter that we’ll have to go to court.

Mr. McKay said it is still early days for many of the financing routes being created. Federal and provincial Indigenous loan programs have grown to more than $17-billion, he noted, but only $1.8-billion has been allocated. He called that a “good start.”

Banks, he said, are still learning how to operate in this space – a comment that stuck with me. First Nations people have been here for so long, yet it has taken Canada’s most powerful financial institutions a lifetime to get here.

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He also pointed out what everyone in the room knew to be true: that “structural barriers” need to be addressed, or Canada won’t be able to move forward with its ambitious plans. This is a hard reality, as we don’t even necessarily see eye-to-eye on what those structural barriers are. For instance, in British Columbia, First Nations see the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People Agreement as law, but the B.C. government, which brought it forward in 2019, has tried to wiggle out of it.

The Māori in New Zealand are often held up as examples of what Indigenous nations can achieve. That said, there are key differences from First Nations in Canada: The Māori have a royal family, one language and one foundational treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi.

But we share Indigenous values and experiences.

“I see authority being tested, commitments narrowed, agreements revisited. I see Indigenous people standing firmly in the truth of who we are,” Māori Queen Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po said at her keynote last week. “But I also see something shifting. I see a growing recognition that the systems we have relied on are reaching their limits, that economies that built on taking without renewing exhaust both the land and its people.”

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As in Canada, treaty negotiations and interpretations continue between the state and the Māori. They have built long-horizon investment capability and Indigenous finance networks, while nearly doubling their asset base to NZ$126-billion between 2018 and 2023. “The question of how we hold and deploy our capital is now a question global finance systems are being forced to confront. Because capital shaped by indigenous values is defined by what it protects, what it builds and what it leaves for those that come after. The well-being of our people, the strength of the environment and the inheritance of what we pass on is the standard of what we hold investment to, ours and others.”

Not every opportunity meets that standard, she added. But Canada will have a better shot if Indigenous partners are respected as economic equals.