Resource World Magazine

A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 1 7 www.resourceworld.com 39 Nations are the new player on the road to resources and governments and companies have had to make appropriate adjustments and work collaboratively to bring about more constructive project outcomes," says Gallagher. It's a question of risk management for resource projects. "The people in the board room now view their actions with First Nations as providing regulatory insur- ance for their project," says Gallagher. Projects that are under attack on multiple fronts – say, landowners, municipalities and environmentalists are against it – can turn things around simply by getting local First Nations' support. "The Native stamp of approval is a key form of regulatory insurance," Gallagher says. He suggests that bankers will ultimately play the most profound role in native self-empowerment and participation. "We are so far past the tipping point and we have a resource sector in free fall in terms of access to resources, that bankers have to know there is serious risk to fund a project if the First Nations are not stepping up and supporting it," says Gallagher But do First Nations have a project veto? Kinder Morgan's TransCanada Pipeline and British Columbia's Site C Hydroelectric projects are cases in point. Neither project had full support of the First Nations but have been allowed to proceed based on the broader benefits for Canadian economic well-being. Many had woken up to the possibility of a First Nations veto on resource projects when the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was first floated before the Harper Government, who later begrudgingly and conditionally accepted it in 2010. The Liberal government has embraced the document uncondition- ally which states that resource projects can't be imposed without "free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous people impacted by the project". Gallagher says we didn't need UNDRIP as a guide. First Nations already had a de- facto veto before the UNDRIP was adopted in Canada. "In law we have a similar document. If you take the legal rational and all the courts instructions about how it might handle similar situations from all the court cases First Nations have won and put it in a compendious document, you would have something that approaches the UNDRIP document in its own right," says Gallagher. "If a First Nation wants to take out your project, they have the tri-partite power – they have on the ground power, legal power and negotiating power." While the main responsibility for consultation falls on the shoulders of government, "the business commu- nity recognizes it must respectfully and meaningfully engage with aboriginal communities when looking to develop projects in First Nations' traditional ter- ritories and also find ways to ensure that economic development benefits aboriginal Canadians." The result on the ground for Indigenous peoples has been dramatic and posi- tive. According to the Prospector and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), there are now 800+ communication, col- laboration and impact benefit agreements in Canada between resource developers and Indigenous groups amounting to billions of dollars in jobs, skill training, business con- tracts and payments to communities. Today, there are 250 Aboriginal economic development corporations oper- ating across the country, many with direct engagement with the resource sector, hun- dreds of collaboration agreements between resource developers and Indigenous groups. A recent TD study shows the direct aboriginal contribution to Canada's GDP is more than $32 billion. Resource revenue sharing exists or is under development across much of the country. An increasing number of Indigenous communities are taking up equity positions in major resource proj- ects. The Tahltan Nation Development Corporation recently took an equity position in Imperial Metal's Red Chris Mine and has a seat at the co-management table. "There is still work to be done," says Gallagher who is working on his second book, but recognizing rights and title exist and that collaboration is necessary in the resource sector as elsewhere – and is proving to be good for business for all Canadians. n

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