An investment pathway designed to build prosperity in Alberta’s Indigenous communities widened this week, with the government adding two eligibility categories to a Crown corporation’s mandate.
Loan guarantees from the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation can now include the technology and health care sectors, Minister of Indigenous Relations Rajan Sawhney announced.
Calling the cabinet approval “an exciting time for economic reconciliation in Alberta,” Sawhney said Indigenous communities and industry prompted the government to act by showing an interest in the new categories.
Technology and health care join natural resources, transportation, agriculture, telecommunications and tourism as areas eligible for AIOC loan guarantees. The added sectors are “fast-moving, rapidly growing industries and the time is right for this expansion,” said the statement from Sawhney, the UCP member for Calgary-North West.
Since becoming operational in November 2019, the Crown corporation has provided nearly $750 million in loan guarantees to create long-term revenue streams in 43 Indigenous communities. Although the swath of acceptable project sectors is wide, the nine approvals so far are tied only to natural resources.
Among the guarantees was one announced last September that saw Wapiscanis Waseskwan Nipiy Limited Partnership expand to include Bigstone Cree Nation and buy more assets. AIOC came through with a $45-million loan guarantee for investment in midstream oil and gas infrastructure in northern Alberta.
The partnership already involved 12 Indigenous nations, announced in December 2023 in a $150-million loan guarantee.
The latest addition, Bigstone Cree Nation, is made up of communities at Calling Lake, Wabasca and Chipewyan Lake, with its headquarters about 330 kilometres north of Edmonton. The industry partner for all the First Nations involved in the Clearwater play is Tamarack Valley Energy.
In August 2020, AIOC provided a $93-million loan guarantee to help six First Nations became equity partners in the Cascade Power Project, a major natural gas-fired plant near Edson that started operating last year. Touted as part of Alberta’s transition away from coal-fired generation, Cascade has a supply capacity of eight per cent of the province’s average electricity demand.
AIOC announced at the time that Nakota Sioux Nation, Enoch Cree Nation, Kehewin Cree Nation, O’Chiese First Nation, Paul First Nation and Whitefish Lake First Nation were partnering with private investors. Edson is about 200 km west of Edmonton.
In southern Alberta, meanwhile, the Duchess Solar Project has Indigenous involvement supported by the Crown corporation. The project’s majority owner is Cold Lake First Nations, northeast of Edmonton.
AIOC provided a loan guarantee of $22 million to help finance the project, which will feature 50,000 photovoltaic panels about 125 km southeast of Medicine Hat in Newell County near Duchess.
