Aboriginal Leader Says Consult or Risk Canada Resource Gains

Canada’s top aboriginal leader warned that the country’s push for resource projects will be bogged down in legal and political strife unless governments consult more on revenue sharing and environmental protection.

“People won’t invest in Canada if there is instability, if there is no partnership with indigenous peoples,” Perry Bellegarde, leader of the Assembly of First Nations, said Wednesday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Ottawa office. He said disputes over resource rights with aboriginals will affect most of the estimated C$675 billion ($536 billion) of projects over the next decade.