Who Stands to Win in Poilievre’s Canada: (Some) First Nations – Macleans.ca

April 7, 2025

Poilievre wants to make it faster and easier to extract resources on First Nations land. It could pay off for some communities—but leave others out in the cold.

Last summer, Pierre Poilievre delivered a speech to the Assembly of First Nations blasting what he called the Liberals’ “performative reconciliation.” In other words, talking a big game but accomplishing little. His government, he said, would make tangible differences in Indigenous people’s lives—mostly by getting them access to cold, hard cash from resource-extraction projects. “If reconciliation means anything,” he declared, “it means saying yes to economic opportunities.”

His preferred vehicle for doing so is the First Nations Resource Charge, a proposed policy intended to streamline negotiations between Indigenous communities, governments and resource companies. The FNRC proposes allowing Indigenous communities to negotiate directly with firms that want to exploit resources on their land, rather than involve other levels of government. The companies, in turn, would pay 50 per cent of their federal tax to the relevant Indigenous communities. And resource projects would happen faster, at least theoretically.

Read More: https://macleans.ca/politics/who-stands-to-win-in-poilievres-canada-some-first-nations/