Indigenous ownership in business projects offers many advantages, and loans backed by the Canadian government would allow these people to unleash their full potential, according to a report conducted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI). “When an indigenous community has equity in a project, they have skin in the game,” said MLI Natural Resources, Energy, and Environment Program Director Heather Exner-Pirot in a press release. “The project’s success is their success.”Exner-Pirot called this “what makes equity such a powerful tool from a proponent perspective: it helps align interests and incentives.”Some of the purposes Exner-Pirot said indigenous ownership serves include providing tangible economic benefits to indigenous people from the developments, gauging consent for a project within a community, expediting burdensome regulatory processes for resource and energy development in Canada and propelling it as a leader on energy and resource projects. Since challenges persist, she said reliance on loan guarantee programs must contend with the reality they seek to minimize risks for taxpayers and indigenous people. While they could entertain a narrow set of projects, she added they should complement rather than replace other tools to enhance indigenous engagement in resource development. She said indigenous investors and their partners should consider several alternative tools, including payments and royalties, tax credits, royalty credits and trusts and corporate shares. While equity is an excellent tool for indigenous engagement, Exner-Pirot said it “is not the only tool in the toolbox and is not appropriate in every circumstance.”“The bigger the toolbox, the better the outcome,” she said.The Indigenous Resource Network (IRN) unveiled its new Ownership is Reconciliation campaign in July, marking a transformative shift from its original Ownership Changes Everything campaign. READ MORE: Canadian indigenous group launches campaign about resource development being reconciliation“We initiated the Ownership Changes Everything campaign to showcase the positive impact of indigenous ownership in resource projects,” said IRN Executive Director John Desjarlais. “The response has been overwhelming, with strong resonance among policy makers, industry, and indigenous communities.”
