ABPA president argues investors need clearer disclosure of Indigenous-rights and consent risks as Canada seeks $1 trillion in new investment

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / THUNDER BAY, ON — Jason Rasevych of Ginoogaming First Nation is taking a Northern Ontario debate over mining, Indigenous consent and investment risk to the international stage.

Rasevych, president of the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association (ABPA), is in Geneva this week during the 63rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, where he is calling for greater scrutiny of how Canadian capital markets disclose risks associated with Indigenous rights and resource development.

The ABPA says Canadian securities regulators should require clearer disclosure from resource companies about consultation, Indigenous rights, land disputes and whether affected First Nations have provided Free, Prior and Informed Consent, commonly known as FPIC.

The argument being advanced by Rasevych is fundamentally an investment one: if unresolved Indigenous-rights issues can delay projects, trigger litigation, affect permitting or lead to opposition on the ground, investors should be able to assess those risks before committing capital.

Rasevych’s visit comes days after Prime Minister Mark Carney hosted the first Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on September 14 and 15. The federal government says its broader economic strategy aims to catalyze $1 trillion in total public, private and institutional investment over five years, including investments in energy, transportation and critical minerals. The government said nearly $500 billion in prospective new investment was highlighted through the summit.

For the ABPA, that investment push raises a central question: what constitutes investment certainty when proposed projects are located on Indigenous traditional territories?

Ring of Fire at Centre of Debate

The issue carries particular significance in Northern Ontario.

The Ring of Fire mineral region in the James Bay Lowlands has long been promoted for deposits including chromite, nickel and copper. The region is also part of Treaty 9 territory and contains extensive peatlands and wetlands.

Federal regional-assessment material describes the James Bay Lowlands as one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth and notes that approximately 34 First Nations are located across the broader region.

Rasevych argues that financial markets need to account for those Indigenous, environmental and legal realities at the beginning of the investment process rather than after disputes emerge.

“Prime Minister Carney is telling global investors that Canada is a safe, predictable place to invest trillions of dollars, but Canadian stock markets are operating in a regulatory vacuum that treats Indigenous rights like optional charity work rather than binding law,” Rasevych said.

“Regulators must mandate clear, continuous consent disclosures co-written with First Nations.”

That is the position being put forward by the ABPA. Canadian securities regulators have, however, begun engagement on Indigenous reconciliation.

The Ontario Securities Commission developed a draft Action Plan for Truth and Reconciliation and conducted public engagement on that plan in 2025. The Canadian Securities Administrators also reported more than 95 stakeholder engagements in 2025-26 involving groups that included Indigenous advocacy organizations and businesses.

The disagreement is over how far that work should go.

ABPA wants regulators to move beyond engagement and voluntary reconciliation initiatives toward mandatory disclosure rules dealing specifically with Indigenous rights, consultation and FPIC.

From Reconciliation to Financial Disclosure

Rasevych has described reconciliation initiatives that are not matched by enforceable financial-market rules as “redwashing.”

The term is being used by Indigenous economic and legal advocates to describe situations where organizations make public commitments to reconciliation while, in their view, failing to change underlying practices affecting Indigenous lands, rights or decision-making.

“Reconciliation in financial markets cannot be reduced to symbolic corporate statements while regulators look the other way on unconsented resource extraction,” Rasevych said.

The ABPA has been pressing this issue with securities regulators for several years. In April 2025, it called on the OSC and Canadian Securities Administrators to place greater emphasis on Indigenous relations and reconciliation reporting, including corporate disclosures connected to UNDRIP and FPIC.

A 2026 joint advocacy report involving the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program and the ABPA subsequently examined Indigenous-rights and capital-market issues connected to critical-mineral development in the Ring of Fire.

What Canadian Law Says

The legal landscape is more complicated than a single consent requirement.

Canada’s federal United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act requires the Government of Canada, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples, to take measures necessary to ensure federal laws are consistent with the UN Declaration.

Section 5 applies expressly to the Government of Canada. Its application should therefore not be characterized as automatically imposing the same statutory obligation on the Ontario Securities Commission, which operates under provincial law. How UNDRIP principles should influence provincial securities regulation remains part of the broader legal and policy debate Rasevych is raising.

Court rulings have nevertheless demonstrated that Indigenous-rights issues can have significant consequences for resource-development systems.

In Gitxaała Nation v. British Columbia, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the province had a constitutional duty to consult First Nations before registering mineral claims. British Columbia subsequently established a mineral-claims consultation framework. In December 2025, the B.C. Court of Appeal also ruled that B.C.’s provincial Declaration Act gives legal effect to UNDRIP within that province.

A separate Supreme Court of Canada decision involving Lundin Mining dealt with securities disclosure and the circumstances in which changes affecting a company’s business, operations or capital may require immediate disclosure. That case did not establish an Indigenous-consent requirement, but it is relevant to the wider discussion about what companies must disclose when material operational risks emerge.

Rasevych wants securities regulators to make Indigenous-rights risks more explicit within that disclosure framework.

The “Certainty Premium”

At the UN, Rasevych is also making the argument that Indigenous consent should not be viewed solely through the lens of regulatory compliance.

He says it can create economic value.

Waawoono Consultancy, where Rasevych was lead author of the report Beyond the IBA: The Evolution of Indigenous Equity Ownership & Sovereign Wealth Generation, describes this as a “certainty premium.”

The concept argues that genuine Indigenous partnerships — potentially including equity ownership and consent-based agreements — can reduce litigation, permitting and project-interruption risks and therefore improve a project’s attractiveness to long-term capital.

“Consent is not an obstacle or a cost centre,” Rasevych said. “When resource companies build genuine, consent-based partnerships with First Nations, they secure legal certainty, lower their cost of capital, and protect long-term shareholder value.”

The financial claims associated with a “certainty premium,” including whether a specific arrangement measurably lowers borrowing costs, will ultimately depend on the circumstances of individual projects and financing structures. But the broader concept reflects a growing push toward Indigenous equity participation rather than relying exclusively on conventional Impact Benefit Agreements.

FPIC on the Agenda in Geneva

Free, Prior and Informed Consent has been a formal topic during this week’s Human Rights Council activities.

On September 22, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights held a Geneva session on guidance concerning the right of Indigenous Peoples to FPIC in the context of business activities. The event involved Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International, the International Service for Human Rights and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, with support from Mexico and Finland.

The Human Rights Council also held its annual panel discussion on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on September 23.

The ABPA says Rasevych’s Geneva interventions include calls for greater international examination of Canadian financial regulation, further study of how UNDRIP can be reflected in domestic capital-market rules and continued discussion about protecting Indigenous lands and culturally significant areas.

Rasevych is also arguing that the debate over the Ring of Fire cannot be reduced to mineral valuations.

“Our ancestral lands in Ontario are not just speculative mining blocks on a stock ticker,” he said. “They are living cultural heritage.”

For Northern Ontario, the underlying question is increasingly both political and financial: as governments seek billions of dollars in new critical-mineral investment, how will Indigenous jurisdiction, consent and unresolved project risks be reflected in the information investors receive?

Rasevych’s message in Geneva is that those questions should be answered before capital is raised — not after conflict begins.

About the ABPA

The Anishnawbe Business Professional Association is a Northern Ontario non-profit organization focused on First Nation business participation, Indigenous economic development and economic reconciliation. The organization has advocated for greater Indigenous participation in corporate governance, capital markets and resource-development decision-making.