In June, a new company called Nations Royalty Corp. began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange.
With minimum fanfare it quietly hit a milestone on the road to Indigenous economic reconciliation in Canada, becoming the only mining royalty company in the world that is majority-owned by Indigenous people.
Backed by billionaire Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra, Nations Royalty aims to lure investors with the promise of exposure to Indigenous-owned royalties, which company executives say is the last untapped pool in Canada.
But for the Nisga’a Nation — the self-governing First Nation in British Columbia that owns 77 per cent of the company — Nations Royalty is also a key part of the path to economic independence.
“One of the goals of our nation is financial independence,” said Nisga’a secretary-treasurer Charles Morven.
“We still haven’t broken away from the Indian Act, like we would like to … We want to be accountable to ourselves. [Nations Royalty] will allow us to manage our own wealth, instead of relying on …