Fifty years ago, it was unheard of for mining companies to share the wealth and the benefits from their operations with Indigenous communities in Canada, much less be on speaking terms.
Times have dramatically changed with the massive need for ‘critical minerals’ to feed the emerging net-zero emissions economy. There’s the pressure for mining companies to find and develop deposits while meeting their obligations to build trust with Indigenous people.
Today, there are Aboriginal-owned corporations in the resource sector engaged with remote operations in Canada where sometimes 70 per cent of the workforce is Indigenous, remarked Ken Coates, a University of Saskatchewan researcher and moderator of a recent webinar hosted by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.
