While a prominent Indigenous business leader believes major project development in Canada is progressing at lightning-quick speed, he is doing his best to ease concern that it’s too quick and occurring at the expense of treaty rights.
JP Gladu was a featured speaker at the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business (CCIB) Central Business Forum held Feb. 26 in Toronto.
He was on a panel titled “Major Projects in Practice: The Future of Indigenous Participation in Major Projects in Canada.”
Once the president and CEO of the CCIB, in 2020 Gladu founded Mokwateh, an Indigenous-led consultancy that provides economic development, sustainability and strategic partnership advice.
This past fall Gladu was also one of 11 individuals named to the Indigenous Advisory Council that will support the federal government’s Major Projects Office. This group was created to ensure partnerships and Indigenous economic participation as major initiatives advance across the country.
Gladu spoke of the advancement of Indigenous participation levels in projects.
“It’s changing and it’s changing rapidly,” he said. And that’s because of a different line of thinking.
“Industry and governments have started to understand things get a little easier when you put communities out front and fund the capacity if they don’t have the capacity.” He said Indigenous communities can now be part of the process and included in nation building.
“Speed is fine if you’re equipped for it, like a bobsled team,” he said. “If you’ve got the good machinery, your blades are sharp, you got your whole team, you’ve got your captain and your co-captain driving it, speed can be achieved.”
But there are right and wrong ways to get things done, he said.
“The danger is if you don’t equip community and you try to push quickly. That’s where the bobsled is upended and then people get hurt.”
Gladu said he realizes many Indigenous people throughout Canada are leery of Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, passed last June.
“There’s fear of Bill C-5,” Gladu said. “I get comments from communities of ‘are we going to have our treaty rights or are they going to be bypassed’.”
Gladu said checks and balances are in place and projects won’t go forward as capital won’t be provided if Indigenous groups are not happy.
“Largely, we’ve been on the outside looking in and we’ve protested and with good effect in the sense of making sure we’re at the table now,” he said. “So, having said that, we encourage proponents to come forward with strong Indigenous relationships, models … funding and training, tertiary opportunities to have projects go. And we even encourage First Nation, Métis or Inuit projects to come forward.”
Gladu said those involved in the Major Projects Office realize proponents must have strong Indigenous relationships and modelling in place before attempting to proceed.
“Without Indigenous communities to support these projects, it’s just too risky,” he said.
Katherine Koostachin, the vice-president of Indigenous relations and reconciliation for the Toronto-based advisory Sussex Strategy Group, said many of the federally-recognized projects being discussed now have been through numerous regulatory processes.
“Right now, they just need the financing,” she said. “So, Major Projects Office is kind of operating more like a financing bank in a sense but they’re more of the trying to co-ordinate and make sure that they’re supporting those projects to get through the line and making sure they start getting built.”
Koostachin said it’s vital to keep an eye on greenfield projects, initiatives starting from scratch in environments that are new and underdeveloped, and how they will be able to achieve designation of being a priority initiative.
Koostachin, who previously helped influence many federal Cabinet decisions in her work as a senior advisor of Indigenous policy and litigation in the Prime Minister’s Office, said it is challenging for some major projects to proceed.
For example, standardizing or making Indigenous equity ownership mandatory in all projects is complex.
“I think it’s not necessarily a political unwillingness,” she said. “It’s more questionable. The reality is that economics come into play because you’re dealing with many investors and lenders who could also be risk adverse.” Plus, there are legal and constitutional frameworks to consider.
“You’re dealing with different levels of government and different jurisdictions,” Koostachin said. “How do you embed the requirements, let’s say, for natural resources or mineral projects when federal doesn’t have the jurisdiction in those spaces. It’s the province. So, how would you mandate that?
“And it’s politics coming into play too because you have to manage those relationships. And you can see that the complexity and just getting major projects through right now, particularly the pageant show, pageantry, that’s happening between all the provinces and territories to get their projects recognized.”
Koostachin also said there are negotiations and trade-offs in place when determining if equity is a good option to have.
“I think in the right space, in the right paradigm, it could work,” she said. “So, it might have to just be at least case by case for now.”
Sean Willy, the president and CEO of the Des Nedhe Group, the economic development corporation of English River First Nation in Saskatchewan, was also a panelist in the major projects session, which was moderated by Tabatha Bull, CCIB’s president and CEO.
