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Some forty years ago, Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples–First Nations, Inuit and Métis–had no say in decision-making about mining activities on or near their ancestral lands. Today, there has been a proliferation of different mechanisms for including Aboriginal perspectives in decision-making, and a growing body of literature is devoted to examining the issues at the crossroads of mining and Indigenous Peoples in Canada. While some authors highlight the inroads made by industry with respect to changing corporate practices (eg, Sloan and Hill 1995), others point out there is still a long way to go before Aboriginal views are appropriately integrated into decision-making (eg, Innu Nation/MiningWatch Canada 1999).

This paper examines some of the factors that led to this ‘flip’in corporate and government policy, focussing in particular on the topic of consultation. In recent years, consultation has become a hot topic in Canadian Aboriginal, policy, legal, industry and NGO circles as one means of ensuring more community input into decision-making about mining. Multistakeholder processes such as the Whitehorse Mining Initiative (WMI) and the more recent National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) Task Force on Aboriginal Communities and Non-renewable Resource Development have underscored the need for better consultation processes as a means to defuse potential conflict and ensure more equitable Aboriginal participation in decision-making. The Supreme Court of Canada has also ruled that Aboriginal people whose Aboriginal rights might be infringed should–at a minimum–be consulted. Environmental Impact …