The scale of Canada's development pipeline is creating opportunities for Indigenous Nations. Knowing whom to trust could determine how much value they realise.
Canada's next wave of major projects is taking shape across energy, mining, infrastructure and defence. The scale is considerable: the country's Major Projects Inventory lists 504 active energy and mining projects worth a combined C$633 billion. Meanwhile, the federal Major Projects Office, established under the Building Canada Act in August 2025, is advancing 27 nation-building initiatives representing more than C$129 billion in investment and 330,000 jobs.
But these figures capture only part of the picture. Scotiabank's Building Canada one-year progress report, which aggregates the Natural Resources Canada inventory, the ReNew Canada Top 100 and the Major Projects Office pipeline, estimates a net total of approximately C$1.15 trillion in projects over the coming decade. A further C$180 billion is committed to defence procurement over ten years, including the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project, the largest single defence contract in the country's history.
For Indigenous Nations, the significance lies not only in the scale of this investment, but in where it is taking place and who stands to participate. Much of Canada's development pipeline runs through or alongside Indigenous territories, creating opportunities for Nations to move beyond consultation and benefit agreements towards ownership, equity participation and long-term economic returns.
The policy landscape is beginning to reflect that shift.
The federal government has doubled its Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program from C$5 billion to C$10 billion, expanding access to financing for Nations seeking equity positions in major projects. RBC's September 2026 analysis estimates that full Indigenous equity participation across the current project pipeline would require approximately C$51 billion in capital, potentially generating C$75 billion in returns, net of capital, over a twenty-year horizon.
And this participation is already taking shape. In British Columbia, LNG Canada Phase 2 is under way, while Cedar LNG, majority-owned by the Haisla Nation, is advancing in Kitimat and Ksi Lisims LNG, backed by the Nisga’a Nation, is progressing through its regulatory and commercial milestones. In Ontario, the Ring of Fire road network is under construction. Across the electricity sector, Hydro One is offering First Nations up to 50 per cent equity in every new large transmission project. BC Hydro’s latest procurement round awarded four wind projects, all with 51 per cent First Nations equity, while Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator contracted fourteen new Indigenous-majority renewable projects in a single round.
The direction is clear: Indigenous participation in Canada's major projects is expanding, with ownership and investment increasingly part of the conversation. But as opportunities multiply, so does the complexity of pursuing them. Each project brings its own developers, lenders, government institutions, commercial partners and financing arrangements, all with different responsibilities and interests.
For Nations, the challenge is no longer simply gaining access to these opportunities, but knowing which partners to engage, whose advice to trust and how to ensure that the relationships and agreements formed today deliver lasting value for their communities.
Behind every major infrastructure or resource project is a network of institutions, commercial partners and professional advisers. For Indigenous Nations, participating in these developments means navigating far more than the terms of an ownership agreement. It means knowing who to approach, what each party brings to the table and, crucially, whose interests they ultimately represent.
A project developer may be looking for a development partner. An institutional lender is concerned with credit risk and repayment. A government agency may be responsible for financing support or regulatory approvals, while an investment bank is arranging capital and a construction consortium is seeking a contract. Each plays a role in bringing a project to fruition, but their objectives are not necessarily aligned with one another, or with those of the Nation.
As Indigenous participation expands, balancing these competing interests becomes increasingly important. Fasken tracks approximately 200 energy projects involving Indigenous equity ownership across Canada, with around a third announced in the past two years alone. At least 111 Indigenous communities have obtained or announced equity stakes in Canadian energy and infrastructure businesses during that period and more Nations are entering these partnerships, bringing a wider range of commercial relationships and financial decisions to navigate.
The challenge is that not all opportunities are structured alike. Each transaction carries its own capital requirements, governance arrangements, financing conditions and allocation of risk. An offer that appears attractive on its headline valuation may come with both operating and financial obligations or restrictions that have far greater implications over the life of a project.
Consider the difference between a benefit agreement based on royalty payments and an equity interest held through a limited partnership. Both can generate financial returns, but they confer different rights, responsibilities and levels of participation in the underlying business. The same applies to long-term power purchase agreements, loan guarantee conditions and the governance rights attached to an ownership stake. Understanding these distinctions is essential to assessing not only what a Nation stands to gain, but what it is committing to in return.
The complexity does not end with the agreements themselves. Prospective partners typically arrive with their own experienced advisers: developers have legal teams, lenders have credit specialists, and institutional investors have financial advisers evaluating the transaction on their behalf. Each brings expertise to the negotiating table, but each is also accountable to the party that engaged them. In addition, most of these prospective partners have many years of experience with complex commercial transactions, which makes them formidable counterparties in a negotiation.
For Nations, having access to comparable expertise is therefore critical. They need advisers who can look beyond the immediate proposal, assess the interests of the parties involved and evaluate whether the financial and commercial terms are at least as favourable to the Nation as other transactions in the sector, as well as genuinely serving the Nation's long-term objectives. The question is not simply who can help bring a project together, but who can be trusted to help ensure that the Nation secures the best possible outcome.
Knowing whom to bring to the table is one of the most consequential decisions a Nation can make when pursuing a major project. The right partners can help turn an investment opportunity into a viable, long-term economic asset. The wrong advice, or advice that does not account for the Nation's interests, can leave leadership committed to terms that are difficult to change.
Part of the challenge is recognising that not all professional advisers serve the same purpose. A lawyer, a banking adviser and an independent financial adviser may all be involved in the same transaction, but their responsibilities differ.
Legal advisers protect the Nation's legal position. They negotiate agreements, interpret regulatory requirements and safeguard contractual and governance rights. In major infrastructure transactions, this calls for experience in project finance, Indigenous law and the regulatory framework governing the development.
Banking advisers, meanwhile, focus on arranging and structuring capital. They may identify lending syndicates, negotiate credit terms and manage relationships with institutional lenders. Their expertise is essential to securing financing, but their mandate is distinct from independently assessing whether the overall investment serves the Nation's financial interests.
An independent financial adviser fills this gap. Working exclusively in the Nation's interest, the adviser provides an objective assessment of the opportunity, the proposed terms and the financial implications of proceeding. This includes testing whether an offer reflects fair market value, modelling potential returns under different scenarios, assessing alternative financing structures and providing formal valuations or fairness opinions where required.
Just as importantly, an independent adviser can help leadership determine whether to proceed, renegotiate or walk away.
While the Nation is weighing the merits of an opportunity, the other parties are already approaching the transaction with their own commercial interests firmly in view. A lender's advisers are responsible for protecting the lender's exposure. A developer's advisers are working towards the developer's commercial objectives. Both may bring considerable expertise, but neither is necessarily responsible for assessing the transaction from the Nation's perspective.
An independent financial adviser provides that separate point of reference. Rather than relying solely on the projections and terms presented by prospective partners, leadership has someone who can scrutinise the numbers, benchmark the proposal against comparable transactions and identify where the commercial terms may fall short of market expectations.
But how does a Nation identify an adviser it can genuinely trust?
Independence is an important starting point, not the only consideration. Leadership should look for a demonstrated record of relevant transactions, experience in the sectors and financing structures involved, transparency around fees and commercial relationships, and a clear mandate to represent the Nation's interests. The adviser should also understand the institutions and financing mechanisms available to Indigenous communities, rather than simply offer general financial guidance.
Ultimately, trust must be supported by both independence and competence. Nations need advisers who understand the commercial environment, can challenge the assumptions presented by prospective partners and have the experience to help leadership make decisions with long-term consequences.
The financing landscape illustrates why this expertise matters. Combined federal and provincial loan guarantee programmes now provide C$17 billion in capacity, with approximately C$1.8 billion allocated across 26 deals. The First Nations Major Projects Coalition estimates that the broader Indigenous financing gap stands at C$50 billion or more.
While these mechanisms are expanding access to capital, making effective use of them requires an understanding of how different programmes operate, what institutional lenders expect and how financing arrangements affect a project's ownership structure, commercial terms and long-term returns.
This is where experience across the wider capital markets becomes relevant. Advisers with a track record in resources, industrials and defence, alongside mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and restructuring, can bring valuable insight into the financial structures and commercial considerations involved in major projects. Origin Merchant Partners, for example, has more than 30 managing directors and more than 300 completed transactions across these areas.
That experience is particularly valuable when assessing major project opportunities, from benchmarking proposed terms against comparable transactions to understanding how financing arrangements affect ownership, governance and long-term returns.
It also requires familiarity with the institutions supporting Indigenous economic participation. Federal and provincial loan guarantee programmes, for example, operate under different eligibility requirements and timelines. Understanding how these mechanisms interact, alongside the requirements of institutional lenders and organisations such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank, can help Nations evaluate which financing routes are available and how best to approach them.
A specialist adviser can also identify provisions that might otherwise receive insufficient scrutiny. The terms of a credit agreement, the conditions attached to a guarantee or the governance requirements of a limited partnership can materially affect a Nation's position throughout a project's lifespan.
With the right advice, leadership can enter negotiations with a clearer understanding of an opportunity's value, the available alternatives and the obligations attached to each proposed arrangement. Just as importantly, it can assess prospective partners from an informed position, rather than relying exclusively on the information they provide.
The objective is not simply to secure a transaction, but to ensure that the relationships, financing arrangements and commercial terms serve the Nation's interests over the long term.
As Canada's development pipeline gathers momentum, Indigenous Nations are being presented with more opportunities to participate in projects that could shape their economic futures for decades. But securing a place at the table is only the beginning. The decisions that follow, from selecting commercial partners and negotiating financing arrangements to determining ownership rights and allocating risk, will ultimately shape the value these projects deliver.
That makes the choice of advisers one of the earliest and most consequential decisions leadership must make. Established relationships can provide a valuable starting point, but familiarity alone is not enough. Nations need people with the transactional experience to understand the structures being proposed, the independence to challenge terms that may not serve their interests and the judgement to identify when an opportunity is worth pursuing.
For Jonathan Broer, Managing Director at Origin Merchant Partners, independent financial advice means "helping Nations look beyond the immediate offer, understand the interests and institutions surrounding a transaction, and assess the financial implications before making long-term commitments."
The objective is not simply to get a deal done, but to ensure that the right partners are engaged, the terms are understood and the Nation's interests remain central throughout the process. When projects have consequences that extend across generations, knowing who stands beside you at the negotiating table can matter as much as the opportunity itself
This article is the first in a six-part series examining how Indigenous Nations, as rights holders, can navigate the significant projects taking shape on and around their territories. The next piece will explore the fundamentals of a transaction, including the key considerations and processes involved in evaluating and pursuing a major project opportunity.
This article is supported by Origin Merchant Partners. Canadian Indigenous Investment Forum retains full editorial control of all content.