Case Study: How IEM Powered RBC's Indigenous Loan Guarantee Report

This case study outlines how Indigenous Energy Monitor (IEM) partnered with RBC to produce Nations Building: Assessing Indigenous Loan Guarantee Programs in Canada's New Project Wave — a national report RBC released in April 2026 ahead of the First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference in Toronto. IEM supplied data and analysis on Indigenous participation in major projects to create the report and help provide a reliable source of information for industry, government, and Indigenous leaders.

Situation

RBC is title sponsor of the FNMPC annual conference, and needed a substantive report examining Indigenous loan guarantee programs, one of the primary financing tools now enabling Indigenous equity participation in major resource and energy projects.

Canada has named a slate of national-interest projects to diversify trade and build economic resilience amid tariff uncertainty and a trade dispute with the United States. The federal Major Projects Office has referred over 17 projects worth $126 billion for accelerated approval, and Indigenous participation is becoming a core condition of project viability. RBC needed a report that could speak credibly to how ready the current financing architecture was for that shift — and that required comprehensive, national-scale data on Indigenous involvement in major projects. IEM is the only source that tracks this at that level of depth and breadth.

Task

Ground a flagship report in defensible, comprehensive data on the state of Indigenous equity participation: how much capital had actually moved through loan guarantee programs, what kinds of projects it had gone to, what does the current portfolio look like, and where the structural gaps were as Canada's project pipeline shifted toward larger, higher-risk categories like LNG, critical minerals, and first-of-its-kind infrastructure.

Action

IEM supplied the primary data and analysis behind the report, drawn from its Indigenous Energy Ownership Tracker module. That data underpinned the report's core findings, including but not limited to:

What the report needed	What IEM provided
Scale of the loan guarantee market	26 completed deals totalling ~$1.8 billion across federal and provincial programs.
Program-by-program breakdown	Deal counts and dollar values for active programs.
Sector concentration	Over 86% of prior Indigenous equity transactions sit in power and utilities.
Project size benchmarks	Median Indigenous-owned project value of ~$175M; only 15% exceed $1 billion
Portfolio breadth	546 Indigenous-owned projects tracked nationally, with only 13 in mining and minerals despite it being a stated national priority

Report Summary & Key Findings

The report examined whether Canada's federal and provincial Indigenous loan guarantee programs — together representing more than $17 billion in combined authority — are equipped for the country's next wave of major resource and energy projects. Drawing on IEM's data, the report found:

• Canada’s Indigenous loan guarantee programs have totalled $1.8 billion across 26 deals. While utilization remains low at 11% it is a meaningful start, reflecting deal complexity and a challenging macro environment.

  
  

• A core gap exists as a first-mile problem, not a last-mile one. Guarantee programs activate at financial close. Many projects now central to Canada’s economic agenda require Indigenous participation well before that point— before commercial viability is established and long before a community could table a term sheet.

  
  

• Current programs work best for contracted, rate-of-return assets. Over 86% of prior Indigenous equity transactions are in the power and utilities sector, often smaller deals supported by dedicated procurement at the provincial level (e.g., power projects in Ontario).

  
  

• Canada’s next project wave presents a risk profile these programs were never designed to manage on their own. This includes capital-intensive liquefied natural gas (LNG), higher-risk mining, and first-of-its-kind projects like carbon capture and small modular reactors.

  
  

• Only experienced communities are realistically able to tap the programs. Middle-tier communities that are less transaction-ready remain structurally underrepresented; the programs’ current design risks only reinforces that gap.

  
  

• Equity is not inherently equivalent to consent. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is a process of informed, voluntary decision-making; equity is a financial structure. Conflating the two creates pressure on communities that is counterproductive—and the regulatory environment reflects that distinction.

Result

The report was published on April 29, 2026, and presented at the FNMPC conference to an exclusive round table of government, Indigenous, and industry leaders including Minister Tim Hodgson, FNMPC Board Chair Sharleen Gale, and RBC CEO Dave McKay, among others. IEM data was used to help guide the discussion and inform these decision makers on how to effectively structure Indigenous participation and get Canada's next major projects built.

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Government, industry, and Indigenous leaders discussing the report and IEM data in Toronto.

For IEM, the collaboration demonstrates the kind of institutional weight its data can carry: cited as the primary source behind a national bank's flagship research, read by industry leaders to guide informed decision-making, and delivered at the premier national Indigenous economic conference.

Impact

The day following the report's release, RBC announced its Indigenous Advisory & Finance practice — a new specialized practice within RBC Capital Markets dedicated to expanding Indigenous nations' access to capital for major projects and investments, through advisory services, financing, and capacity-building programs. RBC CEO Dave McKay cited the need for specialized expertise as Indigenous groups navigate increasingly complex financing transactions — the same structural gap the report, grounded in IEM's data, had just laid out.

Read the full report here: https://www.rbc.com/en/thought-leadership/indigenous/nations-building-assessing-indigenous-loan-guarantee-programs-in-canadas-new-project-wave/

Read the announcement here: https://www.rbc.com/newsroom/news/article.html?article=126095