Making A Commitment to Indigenous People

Building strong relationships with Indigenous People needs to be rooted in the values of the community and the developer.  Both parties need to have an overall approach of establishing, building and cultivating strong and mutually beneficial relationships in order to garner trust and support from Indigenous communities. This enables developers to develop, construct and operate their projects while being a contributing, valued, respected and trusted partner with Indigenous communities. The goal is what is called a “social license to operate,” where the community strongly supports the project and helps to solve any issues that arise during the project’s lifecycle.

Developers need to be committed to working with integrity and deep respect for Indigenous people by engaging in meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities, early, often and throughout the entire life of the project.

The purpose of consultation is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the project and the Indigenous community’s perspectives on the project. Consultation begins at the onset of development and is a continuous process throughout development, construction, operation, and decommissioning or renewal of the project. We work together with the developer to effectively incorporate local knowledge to safeguard the environment, respect local and Indigenous community sensitivities and priorities, and generate mutually rewarding benefits. We ask the developer to provide capacity funding to support effective and meaningful consultation and to support the other steps outlined in this commitment.

Valuing and investing in effective programs that honour and seek to preserve Indigenous community heritage, culture, language, and values.

We work with the developer to respect and honour our traditional lands and ways of life of our Indigenous communities and ask the developer to provide funding for locally inspired programs as well as heritage and cultural initiatives.

Understanding and managing any potential impacts on our Indigenous community and traditional lands.

We believe that it is best practice for every project to complete a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) during development. The SIA is like an Environmental Assessment except that it considers the community, the Indigenous and social environment, and the socio-economic environment which includes traditional knowledge, as well as local perspectives, needs and opportunities for relationships within the project. We believe in monitoring the results of social interactions throughout the life of the project. The SIA should consider any influence of the project on our traditional lands.

Achieving meaningful involvement with Indigenous communities, governments, and financial institutions in projects.

Based on consultation, it is important to collaborate with and advocate for Indigenous communities to achieve meaningful involvement in all projects.  Meaningful involvement should be true equity ownership, but can also include impact benefit agreements and community benefit agreements or royalties.

Negotiating Indigenous and local training, employment, subcontracting and material supply.

We work with the developer and their contractors to enshrine Indigenous and local training, employment, subcontracting and material supply in project contracts. This includes working with the developer and applicable unions to enable Indigenous employment.

Providing a local social liaison on projects during all stages of the project life cycle.

We work with the developer to designate and fund a dedicated position for a local community member who is responsible for designing and implementing the social programs for our Indigenous community for each project. This starts during development and carries on during construction and operations.

We ask the developer to support programs that enhance the lives of individuals in the community by reflecting the priorities of the Indigenous community.

We help the developer to create programs that are designed to foster environmental protection, health and well-being and sustainable Indigenous communities.

Increasing the understanding of the developer and their contractors of our community, along with local culture and traditions, is something that we work on together.

We provide and promote educational programs and learning materials that raise project employees’ knowledge and appreciation of the history, culture and traditions of our Indigenous community and the local communities.