For a decade, the federal government allowed one of the most damaging misconceptions in Canadian economic policy to take root: that indigenous consultation means indigenous consent and that consent effectively means a veto over major projects. That was never the law, but Justin Trudeau’s Liberals behaved and spoke in ways that allowed Canadians, investors, and indigenous communities to wonder whether it was.
Canadian constitutional law establishes a duty to consult indigenous peoples when contemplated government action may adversely affect aboriginal or treaty rights. Depending on the circumstances, governments may also have a duty to accommodate legitimate concerns. Those are serious constitutional obligations, but consultation is not consent, and consultation is not a veto.
That distinction should have been stated clearly and consistently. Instead, the government spent years blurring it. Their 2021 legislation implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples deepened the uncertainty by embracing “free, prior and informed consent” without adequately explaining how that concept interacted with Canadian constitutional law.
The consequences were predictable. Proponents could spend years and billions navigating regulatory processes without knowing whether political opposition would ultimately override regulatory approval. Projects were delayed, abandoned or never proposed, while investment capital went elsewhere. The opportunity cost accumulated for a decade, and Canadians are living with the consequences.
We know that cost was not theoretical. A Fraser Institute analysis estimated that inadequate pipeline capacity cost Canada’s energy sector $20.6 billion in foregone revenues in 2018 alone, approximately 1 percent of Canada’s GDP. Not all our economic difficulties can be attributed to federal policy, but those numbers demonstrate the stakes when a resource-producing country cannot efficiently reach world markets.
Canada possessed almost everything required to become an even greater global energy power: enormous oil and natural gas reserves, engineering expertise, political stability, capital and growing Asian demand. What we lacked was a government willing to say Canada could honourably consult indigenous peoples while still making decisions in the national interest.
The damage extends beyond lost investment. We constrained our access to international markets, weakened our bargaining position with the United States, and frustrated Western Canadians who reasonably ask why resources generating enormous wealth for the federation remain so difficult to move to market.
That has damaged national unity. Many Albertans and Saskatchewanians understandably concluded that federal Liberals viewed their economic interests as something to regulate and restrain rather than champion. A country cannot frustrate the economic aspirations of entire regions for a decade without consequences.
Now, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is discovering the strategic importance of infrastructure his party’s policies helped make extraordinarily difficult to build. A new pipeline to the Pacific would provide greater access to Asian markets and reduce Canada’s precarious dependence on the United States.
Canadians appear to understand this. A July 2026 Angus Reid Institute poll found 63 percent of Canadians support the proposed Alberta-to-B.C. pipeline, including 62 percent of British Columbians. This is no longer a narrowly Western argument. There is a substantial national constituency for building the infrastructure Canada needs.
The latest indigenous opposition nevertheless demonstrates why clarity is essential. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs argues that a pipeline should not proceed without free, prior, and informed consent and advances an extraordinarily broad interpretation of whose rights might be affected. Taken logically, virtually any major Canadian project could face an effective veto.
No responsible federal government can accept that principle. Indigenous peoples possess constitutionally protected rights that must be respected. Governments must consult meaningfully, negotiate honestly, and accommodate legitimate impacts, but elected governments must ultimately govern and determine Canada’s national interest.
The objective should be enthusiastic indigenous participation wherever possible. Equity ownership, employment, procurement, revenue sharing, and long-term commercial partnerships can create generational wealth for First Nations and should be aggressively pursued. Partnership, however, cannot mean surrendering the constitutional responsibility of government to make decisions.
If a West Coast pipeline satisfies rigorous environmental and engineering standards, and meaningful consultation and appropriate accommodation have occurred, it should proceed. The feds confused reconciliation with indecision and allowed uncertainty to infect Canada’s investment climate. After 10 years of lost investment, weakened economic sovereignty, and damage to national unity, Canada cannot afford to lose another decade.
