John Chilibeck
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Daily Gleaner
Joanna Bernard is driving a hard bargain when it comes to the prime minister’s new law to fast-track national projects.
New Brunswick’s regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, along with hundreds of other Indigenous leaders from across the country, listened to Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney give a speech on Thursday morning in Gatineau, Que., at the Great Hall of the Canadian Museum of History, on the same floor dedicated to Indigenous peoples.
The event was closed to the media, but Bernard said the chiefs gave the prime minister an earful.
“After hearing the chiefs on the floor speak to him, I think he’s understanding you can’t just come and make empty promises, as was done in the past,” she told Brunswick News.
“The way I see it, for any project, a percentage of equity should go to First Nations. We shouldn’t even have to negotiate that. Back in the day, they would have said, ‘oh, we’ll give you some ‘capacity building’ and some training dollars,’ Those days are gone.”
Bernard, who served for a decade as the chief of Madawaska First Nation near Edmundston in northwestern New Brunswick and was interim national leader in 2023, said Ottawa is pushing the idea that First Nations should invest in projects of “national interest” such as mines, pipelines, and hydroelectric dams and then reap the financial windfall from any profits.
But she says First Nations should have an automatic equity stake if they agree to give up resources from their traditional territory, without putting any money in.
“Big companies are not coming into Canada, taking our resources and leaving us behind anymore. We’re going to be shareholders of these projects whatever they extract from our lands.”
Earlier, Carney told the leaders he wanted to put Indigenous communities at the centre of economic development.
“This is the first federal legislation to put Indigenous economic growth at its core. We now have the opportunity to realize it,” the prime minister said in a handout of his Thursday morning speech.
The Liberal government’s new One Canadian Economy Act was passed in what in legislative circles is considered lightning speed, making its way through the House of Commons, Senate and royal proclamation in about one month by the end of June.
First Nations leaders have criticized the former banker, known for his quick meetings and punctuality, for racing ahead without consulting them. Indeed, Wednesday was the first time federal officials briefed First Nations leaders on the new law before Thursday’s gathering.
It allows Carney’s Liberal cabinet to anoint projects being in the national interest and fast-track them, exempting them from various laws.
The idea is to make Canada economically stronger in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to keep hitting Canadian goods with tariffs.
One provision of the new law requires Ottawa to consult with Indigenous leaders to determine which projects would be deemed in the national interest.
First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities can also apply to a $10-billion Indigenous loan guarantee program to help them acquire an ownership stake in the development projects. That’s a doubling from the $5 billion the previous Liberal government budgeted last year.
“With this legislation, the word nation carries more than one meaning,” Carney said. “Through Indigenous equity and resource management, these projects will be built with Indigenous nations and communities.”
But Bernard said the prime minister was looking through rose-coloured glasses.
She noted that his finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, had instructed other cabinet ministers to cut 15 per cent of spending from their departments to help chip away at the country’s big deficit, which sits atclose to $40billion.
“Don’t ask us to come to the table while you’re cutting our programs,” the chief warned. “We’re already underfunded. So, if you want to cut, fine, go cut elsewhere, but don’t be cutting us when we’re not adequately funded and then ask us to come to the table. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Ottawa has also offered to train Indigenous people for jobs on the various projects. Bernard said the feds could throw that in “as a bonus” but “there’s no way they’re going to give us just that.”
“They want to give us money to train welders to go work on these pipelines or whatever projects may be coming up,” said Bernard, who once owned a successful excavation business and now holds the economic development portfolio for the assembly.
“But what happens if we want doctors? Where are the education dollars for that? This is why giving us an equity stake would be the best way moving forward without the government having to check off their boxes, ‘oh, we did that, we gave them scholarship money, we gave them this,’ No. We want to be shareholders here.”
Many people credit Bernard for turning around her community when she kickstarted the successful Grey Rock Power Centre beside the TransCanada highway. She accomplished much of it by bargaining hard.
“Give us the money and we will decide how to subsidize programs that the federal government is actually underfunding.”
Premier Susan Holt recently said that one of the nation-building proposals could see a natural gas pipeline extend from Quebec to southern New Brunswick, with a feeder line to northeastern New Brunswick, a big project that would likely cross Wolastoqey, Mi’kmaq and Passamaquoddy territories.
Bernard wouldn’t pass judgment on the pipeline, saying it was up to the 16 different chiefs and their councils to decide if it was a good idea.
To that end, she’s organized a meeting with the chiefs on July 28 at the Delta Fredericton, with National Assembly Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak of Manitoba in attendance.
John Herron, the provincial natural resources minister, has been invited to discuss his plans, which include a mining and mineral strategy.
“I told him: Don’t come in and give us a speech. Just tell us what your plans are for New Brunswick. Then we can talk and figure it out and see how to move forward with your proposed plans.”
