By Bill Gallagher, strategist

The recent $10 billion settlement to Robinson Huron was the latest in a long line of legal victories for Indigenous communities on Canada’s road to resource development – a stunning amount of compensation owing for historically failing to honor the Treaty. The legal victory itself doesn’t end the process, as the parties now must sort out a revenue-sharing formula going forward.

Over the past decade, Indigenous Peoples have been averaging 25 legal wins a year in the resources sector (one every two weeks), sounding a steady drumbeat on the rise of Indigenous empowerment, whose clout may not bode well for future resource projects. Harper was oblivious to this phenomenon’s impact until they took out his Northern Gateway. Trudeau appears to be savvier regarding what’s been happening, but he has major troubles with TransMountain, which is quickly becoming one of the biggest cost over-run boondoggles in our country’s infrastructure history. Today, all politicians appear to be running scared on the road to resources; New Brunswick, Ontario, and Manitoba are clearly devolving into resource dead-zones on account of Indigenous stopping-power.

The Native legal win-streak is currently at 352 resource sector victories. Manitoba recently took a huge loss at the hands of the Inter-Lake Tribal Council over the botched clearing work for the Lake St Martin flood diversion, with the Chief Justice ruling: “The absence of any such notification and consultation in my view constitutes a breach of Manitoba’s obligation and is not in accordance with the honour of the Crown.” This was win #337. The Native side responded: “Manitoba severely undermined its relationship with the IRTC First Nations – our relationship with the province was already on shaky ground. This killed any trust that remained.”

Canada’s economic future is further imperiled by the scourge of raging wildfires, which are disproportionately impacting Indigenous communities. As a result of these (now) annual events, Indigenous communities are facing a major choice: become land protectors and work with allies to shore up their traditional uses and land rights or move into the economic mainstream by working with industry to promote an Indigenous economy. This could go either way. Indigenous Peoples may well align with eco-activists to save their own subsistence and lifestyle priorities. Who can blame them given the hype coming at them over critical minerals and infrastructure.

But the stark reality is that proponents can’t get anything built in this country anymore. Manitoba has yet to reckon with the fact that Indigenous Peoples are the sole “gatekeepers” on the road to resources.

Here’s what future projects should look like:

1. Significant equity ownership for natives denoting management positions and shared control;
2. Revenue-sharing that compensates for Treaty impacts and risk assumption. This is the new project template that’s needed to break from the history of fumbling and bumbling that still plays out in Manitoba. It’s a whole new era: critical minerals, battery transition, forestry, hydro, transmission, and pipelines all involve access to traditional lands where Indigenous Peoples have a clear choice to either work collaboratively with a new breed of resource proponent or (default to) save Mother Earth. It’ll take a whole new political approach for this to happen.

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Bill Gallagher is the author of Resource Rulers and Resource Reckoning (two books explaining the rise of native empowerment). He was instrumental in getting Natives on board at Voisey’s Bay for Inco. Prior to that, he was federal TLE negotiator dealing with several high-profile Manitoba First Nations disputes. He addressed the MPDA last December in a presentation on “The Climax of Indigenous Empowerment.”