Can a Person Be Pro-Industry and Pro-Reconciliation?
Yes. But only if you're willing to have an honest conversation about money.
The first time I watched a timber harvest get delayed by the better part of a year over unresolved First Nations concerns, my initial reaction was frustration. So was everyone else's on the team. The difference is what we did with it.
The easy response - and the one I watched a lot of people make - was to treat Indigenous interests as an obstacle. A layer of friction that existed to be managed, minimized, and eventually cleared so the real work could resume. That framing is wrong, and not just ethically. It is wrong as a business strategy, and the industry is still paying for it.
What I asked instead was simpler: why aren't they part of this? Not as an afterthought. Not as a consultation checkbox. As a genuine partner in an enterprise taking place on land they have viewed as theirs long before any tenure was issued.
The logical extension of that question is obvious once you ask it. They have a legitimate relationship with the resource - one that predates the licensing system and is increasingly recognized in law and regulatory process. We had the expertise and the market access to bring that resource to value. The combination should have been straightforward. Instead, what existed was a series of small-scale arrangements - minor tenure "opportunities," observer roles, feedback loops dressed up as engagement - that transferred almost nothing of substance back to the community and built almost nothing in the way of real economic capacity.
That being said, I understand why the industry defaulted to this model. It satisfied a process requirement, it appeared to limit liability, and for a long time it worked well enough that nobody had to rethink it. The problem is that "well enough" has a shelf life.
What changed my professional direction was arithmetic. Twelve months of delayed revenue - repeated across multiple operations, compounded across an industry - is not a consultation problem. It is a structural one. Structural problems do not get solved by doing the same thing more politely.
I changed what I was doing in order to understand the other side of the table. Not to advocate against industry - I had no interest in that - but because the person most useful to a proponent in a difficult negotiation is the one who genuinely understands what the other party needs and why. You cannot fake that. You cannot brief your way into it the week before the meeting.
The relationships that actually advance projects share a few characteristics that have nothing to do with cultural sensitivity training or corporate values statements.
First, they are honest about money. Both parties are at the table because there is economic value at stake. Acknowledging that directly - rather than dressing the conversation in the language of shared values and mutual respect - is the foundation of a relationship that holds when things get difficult. "We are both here to make money" is not a cynical statement. It is a clarifying one, and the Nations I have worked with appreciate hearing it far more than they appreciate the alternative.
Second, they transfer real benefit. Real jobs, not observer roles. Board positions, not consultation and feedback loops. Equity that means something when a change order hits, not a ceremonial stake that dissolves the first time interests diverge. The arrangements that have fallen apart in BC's resource sector - and there have been many - share a common feature: benefit transfer was structured to satisfy a requirement rather than to build a durable relationship. Those structures do not survive contact with real project conditions.
Third, they lead with ownership, not inclusion. There is a meaningful difference between inviting a Nation to participate in a project and structuring a project in which a Nation-owned entity is actually doing the work. The latter is harder to arrange and requires more preparation on the front end. It is also the model that is winning bids in BC's oil and gas sector right now, because procurement scrutiny has caught up to what the better practitioners in this field have understood for years.
The last round of major oil and gas development in northern BC made this plain. The companies that came to tender with genuine Nation relationships - built before anyone needed them for a bid package - were positioned differently than those that were not. The scrutiny applied to what "Indigenous partnership" actually meant, underneath the language of the proposal, was real. Arrangements that looked like partnerships but were not held up poorly. That scrutiny is not going away.
The direction of travel in BC's regulatory environment, in UNDRIP implementation, and in the procurement criteria of major project developers is consistent: the bar for what counts as meaningful Nation involvement is rising. The companies that treat this as a business reality rather than a political imposition will compete better for the work that is coming. The ones still treating it as a reputational exercise will find the bids harder to win and the projects harder to close.
Being a good neighbour is good for business. It should not need to be said. The fact that framing this as straightforward commercial logic still registers as a distinct position says more about where the industry has been than about where it needs to go.
The answer to the question in the title is yes. But it requires being willing to say, out loud, that the goal is value creation for everyone at the table - and then structuring the relationship to actually deliver it. The people who understand how to do that are not common. When you find one, the bid gets written differently.
Evan MacKinnon is the founder of Parallax Advisory, which provides senior Indigenous relations, Crown consultation, and regulatory strategy services to resource proponents and First Nations governments across northern British Columbia.
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