Prime Minister Mark Carney walks to his first news conference since winning the federal election in Ottawa on Friday, May 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldAdrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The recent federal election generated a fever for launching big projects with haste. Prime Minister Mark Carney has secured a mandate from voters with his election-night promise to “build, build, baby, build.”
The rush to fast-track development is meant to help Canada weather the economic storms of the U.S. tariff war. But one of the significant hurdles that can slow down such a fast track is the requirement of the Crown to conduct meaningful consultation with First Nations impacted by proposed developments. British Columbia has found a way forward, offering a blueprint that should be embraced by Ottawa.
“First Nations do have a big hesitation when we hear ‘fast track’,” noted Robert Phillips, a senior Indigenous leader in British Columbia with the First Nations Summit political executive.
Mr. Phillips was speaking at a B.C. government event, where he offered his support to an initiative that does aim to expedite construction of new renewable energy projects.
His willingness to go along with this rush to expand B.C.’s electricity grid, which will power new critical minerals mines and other industrial development, offers a contemporary lesson on how governments and corporations in Canada can move forward with haste.
British Columbia has a sorry history of running roughshod over Indigenous communities as it developed its hydroelectric power grid. It flooded graveyards and sacred sites, displaced communities, and destroyed salmon runs that had sustained Indigenous peoples for thousands of years.
That attitude of entitlement has shifted. Late last year, BC Hydro announced a plan to acquire renewable power from the private sector to meet growing demand for clean electricity. The request for proposals – the first in 15 years – came with strings attached. Bidders needed to meet a minimum requirement for equity ownership held by First Nations.
Hydro has just signed long-term purchase agreements with independent power producers for 10 projects, most of them with majority First Nations ownership. It is now seeking more private power to expand supply by roughly 25 per cent. That’s enough to power 1.5 million homes.
These new deals spread out the benefits across communities and ensure that First Nations are willing participants rather than potential litigants.
The Upper Nicola Band, in the B.C. interior, owns a 51-per-cent stake in the Boulder and Elkhart wind project near Merritt. The electricity purchase agreement represents a dramatic shift in its relationship with BC Hydro.
The Upper Nicola’s traditional territories are marked with multiple transmission lines, and a large substation was built between the nation’s two reserve communities without consent. Hydroelectric dams wiped out salmon runs.
The windswept mountains that surround the Nicola Valley are ripe for renewable energy development, which will add to the cumulative impacts. But with this project, the community has the opportunity to shape development. They will see employment opportunities in the construction phase, and then regular dividends once the project is up and running.
The benefits are not limited to the band and their private partner, Elemental Energy, of course.
Renewable power is relatively cheap to build right now, so it is a cost-effective way to meet the province’s growing need for clean energy. The projects are distributed around the province, ensuring that remote communities will benefit from economic development.
In the big picture, access to critical minerals is an issue of national security. Canada’s critical minerals strategy aims to carve out a role as a global supplier of critical minerals which are needed to produce a wide range of products from electric vehicle batteries to cellphones.
British Columbia has those minerals in the ground, and 18 proposed mines on the books. But new electricity infrastructure will be needed in the northwest corner of the province to power those mines.
The B.C. government has promised to build the needed transmission line, and BC Hydro is consulting with First Nations along the proposed route, seeking partnership agreements that will smooth a fast-tracked solution.
The principles involved here can translate to the big, nation-building projects that Mr. Carney hopes to secure. Economic reconciliation with First Nations that brings benefits for communities, for industry, and for taxpayers.