Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today as you study our nation's economic recovery from COVID-19.
My name is Heather Exner-Pirot and I'm here in my capacity as a fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. I have been studying northern and indigenous development for 15 years and lately have been working on a variety of pieces related to indigenous engagement in resource development.
I can certainly appreciate the desire and the imperative to move toward a greener economy, but I want to caution the government against limiting through your policies what kinds of energy systems northern and indigenous communities can engage in and what kinds of resources they can invest in. I do have some concerns that our policy choices are limiting the opportunities that indigenous peoples have access to. I will offer two examples.
The first is the Canada Infrastructure Bank. As you know, it has a fairly limited mandate. I think it's excellent that you have dedicated $1 billion for initiatives for indigenous communities. However, on the resource development side, it is restricted to clean power and green infrastructure. This is a concern because, by far, the best economic development opportunities for indigenous peoples in Canada have been in oil and gas and mining.
Indigenous businesses are 40 times more likely than the average Canadian business to operate in the extractive sector. Billions of dollars of contracts are awarded each year to indigenous businesses in the extractive industry. The oil and gas and mining sectors represent eight of the top 10 highest paying occupations for indigenous peoples in Canada, and oil and gas occupations pay indigenous employees about four times the average wage of all other sectors. That is consistent for indigenous women also, for whom oil and gas related occupations represent the top six highest paying occupations, with pipeline transportation being the highest.
I know there have been missed opportunities where first nations would have been able to become involved in projects as equity owners if they'd had better access to capital. These kinds of projects help them develop intergenerational wealth. I know there are many excellent indigenous solar, wind and biomass projects, but they do not generate the same scale of financial benefits as oil and gas and mining do in Canada.
The other example is in local energy development. I think community, indigenous and government stakeholders are all unanimous in wanting to transition remote communities off of diesel, but programs such as Northern REACHE, again, limit alternatives to solar, wind, biomass and hydro, and not fossil fuels such as natural gas.
In many cases, especially where hydro is not a viable option, switching from diesel to natural gas would save significant amounts of money, produce fewer greenhouse gas, particulate and nitrogen oxide air emissions, and would be quieter and more efficient to operate. In general, diesel generators can be converted to operate on natural gas fuels. Wind and solar are intermittent sources of energy and not stand-alone solutions for northern communities, but many government programs preclude that transition to natural gas because it is a fossil fuel.
My point here is to draw the committee's attention to some of the perhaps unintended consequences of green policies. It is good to incentivize and support communities that choose wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and hydro opportunities, but it should not constrain their ability to choose the best opportunity overall looking at a combination of social, economic and environmental factors.
I will conclude with this. The commodity cycle is turning. It looks like there are some good years ahead for oil and gas and mineral projects if Canada can start to attract more investment. It will be critical for economic recovery from COVID, especially in rural and remote areas.
Indigenous peoples have been historically left out of the benefits of Canada's resource development. Only in the past three or four years have we really seen that evolution toward indigenous equity ownership in major projects and that is a very positive move. But, if they are only supported in the ownership of smaller green projects, they will again miss out on a generational opportunity to build community prosperity and generate own-source revenues. I am concerned that this is neither ethical nor fair, so I would urge the committee to advocate for policies that maximize indigenous peoples' ability to make their own choices about what kinds of energy and resource projects to support.
Thank you.