Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to speak to the committee.
I am the executive director of Indigenous Clean Energy. We are a not-for-profit that promotes leadership and capacity of indigenous businesses and communities to participate in the clean energy transition.
Today our participants, our mentors and our entire network span over 1,000 individuals who are practitioners. They are are indigenous people and indigenous communities and businesses working on clean energy projects.
The first thing I'll talk about is the critical role that indigenous communities and businesses play in clean energy today. I'll talk a bit about the opportunities that present themselves in the North American context, and then I'll end by suggesting some next steps that the federal government can look at, moving forward.
Today, clean energy projects that are indigenous-owned, co-owned or have indigenous participation represent over 20% of Canada's total electrical generation. It's a major portion of our electrical generation network. We've seen incredible growth. Since 2019, the number of of medium-sized to large projects—one megawatt or more—with indigenous participation has grown by almost 40%, from under 200 projects in 2019 to over 270 today. These are projects with indigenous participation that are over one megawatt.
Indigenous people also play an important role as employees in the minerals industry, representing 12% of that labour sector. Indigenous organizations are now players in electricity transmission, housing and infrastructure efficiency, and advanced clean energy technologies.
The other benefit for communities is that collectively, the net revenue for communities represents about $400 million annually. That money is being reinvested in economic development, infrastructure and other services in communities.
I'll talk a bit about the opportunities moving forward. Most provinces and territories are experiencing, on average, about a 2% increased electricity demand, which is compounded each year. Those provinces and territories and the utilities within them are making major strides to expand their electricity generation. Many of them have incorporated different mechanisms to promote indigenous participation in those projects. We've seen, to date, that indigenous leadership is critical in seeing that participation is successful on these projects moving forward.
There are some examples in terms the goal of having positive union participation in these projects. I would point to the Gordie Howe bridge in another sector, which is a good example of unions participating. We saw significant indigenous labour in that project.
I would stress that an important component in these projects is the secondary service industry and the growing role of indigenous entrepreneurship. We see more small and medium-sized indigenous businesses providing support services to new clean energy projects. That is where we have seen more indigenous labour moving into the workforce. It's potentially into unions as well, but there are a number of barriers for indigenous people to move into those union roles. We're seeing entrepreneurship and defined procurement. The Gordie Howe bridge is one federal example of that, but there are many examples across utilities across the country of procurement mechanisms that have helped promote indigenous participation.
I also just want to point to several initiatives to promote cross-border trade between U.S. tribes and indigenous communities in Canada that have some history now . Clean energy has been an area of discussion for quite some time. There is an appetite for U.S. tribal investment in Canadian clean energy and a there's a real synergy, because these business partnerships exist and there is that interest. Two groups where we see these discussions are the Jay Treaty Border Alliance and the Potawatomi gathering. There could be increased federal support through remission orders or other possible ways to limit the impact of tariffs and other challenges to that participation.
I'll just end with some suggestions for the federal government on taking action.
We have seen major strong indigenous clean energy programming coming from Natural Resources Canada, IFC, CIRNAC and Environment and Climate Change. Also, CMHC has played a major role.
What we are suggesting is rapid development of a new fund to deal with clean energy retrofits. We see the demand side as being incredibly important to meet targets. We are also suggesting an increased capacity to equip indigenous leaders, renewal of Indigenous Services clean energy funding within the strategic partnerships initiative and consideration of a major new strategic fund.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.