MY PREDICTION - The Indigenous Economy Will Take Off

Reconciliation is becoming Canada’s biggest business story—and its greatest economic opportunity

- Carol Anne

In 2025, Indigenous communities across Canada will gain more control over their land and resources, opening up new opportunities for development, profit and reinvestment. The result will be a virtuous cycle in the Indigenous economy that's going to make Bay Street stand up and pay attention.

We've seen this trend begin to play out for the past few years. In 2021, for example, seven Mi'kmaw communities obtained a 50 per cent share in Nova Scotia-based Clearwater, one of the largest seafood companies in North America, for $1 billion. Last year, the Haisla Nation in B.C. became the majority owner of Cedar LNG, a natural-gas export terminal and the largest Indigenous-owned infrastructure project in Canada. And a deal is under way right now between Bell Canada and Sixty North Unity, a consortium of Indigenous communities, to purchase telecom Northwestel for approximately $1 billion. If the deal goes through, it'll create the largest company of its kind in the world with entirely Indigenous ownership.