The Indigenous Economy Is About to Take Off
In 2025, Indigenous communities across Canada will gain more control over their land and resources, opening up new opportunities for development, profit and reinvestment. The result will be a virtuous cycle in the Indigenous economy that’s going to make Bay Street stand up and pay attention.
We’ve seen this trend begin to play out for the past few years. In 2021, for example, seven Mi’kmaw communities obtained a 50 per cent share in Nova Scotia–based Clearwater, one of the largest seafood companies in North America, for $1 billion. Last year, the Haisla Nation in B.C. became the majority owner of Cedar LNG, a natural-gas export terminal and the largest Indigenous-owned infrastructure project in Canada. And a deal is under way right now between Bell Canada and Sixty North Unity, a consortium of Indigenous communities, to purchase telecom Northwestel for approximately $1 billion. If the deal goes through, it’ll create the largest company of its kind in the world with entirely Indigenous ownership.
One reason for the boom is that First Nations are finally getting value out of treaties they signed with the Crown, albeit centuries late. Last year, after the Supreme Court determined the Crown had failed to match annuity payments to inflation since 1875, Canada and Ontario agreed to pay $10 billion to several Anishinaabe First Nations. The settlement package will create an enormous pool of cash that can be invested in new enterprises. First Nations covered under four other treaties have now launched similar lawsuits, with one valued at another $10 billion.
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Another factor boosting the Indigenous economy is that First Nations are getting greater control over their treaty lands—and the resources they hold. In 2021, the province of Saskatchewan transferred mineral rights on 65 hectares of land to Little Pine First Nation. That was followed by a transfer of 63 hectares to Ocean Man First Nation in 2023 and, finally, 336 hectares to Cowessess First Nation in 2024. This year we can expect these nations to leverage their new resources to become local economic powerhouses.
Canada’s transition to a low-carbon economy will also create new opportunities for Indigenous businesses. Many of the resources required for the transition, like rare-earth metals used in batteries, electric vehicles and renewable-energy infrastructure, are located on Indigenous territories. Ontario’s Ring of Fire region is a 5,000-square-kilometre area rich in nickel, copper and platinum that could be worth billions of dollars. It overlaps with the land of several First Nations, four of which have signed a deal with Ontario to develop roads to the area, which will open their towns to the world and the Ring of Fire to development.
Shifts in the regulatory environment will facilitate greater Indigenous self-determination. Governments are increasingly delegating environmental impact assessments to Indigenous governing bodies. The Squamish Nation’s Woodfibre LNG project in B.C. was the first to have a legally binding, Indigenous-led impact assessment, which has allowed the nation to make demands about where tanker ships can anchor, what cooling technology the terminal can use and how it may expand. By allowing the nation this control, the assessment played a crucial role in establishing consent for the project.
We’ll see a new wave of entrepreneurship thanks to greater access to credit. For decades, the Indian Act put Indigenous communities in an economic straitjacket, preventing them from using anything on a reserve—land, real estate, property—as collateral. Today, provinces and the feds are rolling out loan guarantees, helping to secure new reserves of credit. The 2024 federal budget included a $5-billion loan guarantee program.
And Canada’s financial sector is getting interested. Corporations like KPMG, Enbridge and Deloitte are creating reconciliation action plans and thinking seriously about how to engage with the Indigenous economy. But doing so is about more than being a good corporate partner. It’s about building on the truth that formed this country, recognizing that Indigenous people have long been isolated from financial success, and seeing the powerful economic argument to undo that harm. In the coming year, as Indigenous equity takes off, it’s going to be increasingly obvious which corporations are on board—and which aren’t.
The Indigenomics Institute has identified the potential value of the Indigenous economy in Canada at more than $100 billion. That would make it five per cent of the national GDP—equivalent to the portion of the country’s population that identifies as Indigenous. This year, we’ll accelerate toward achieving that number. Get ready.
Carol Anne Hilton is the CEO and founder of Indigenomics Institute.
