Dear John,

To mitigate the risks involved in the $20 billion governments have earmarked for Indigenous loan guarantees to facilitate participation in infrastructure projects, lessons should be learned from past successes and failures.

A new study documents the success — and failures — of loan guarantees for Indigenous participation in a variety of projects in recent years, and lays out a series of policy guidelines that could mitigate risks associated with loan guarantees, particularly those for larger infrastructure projects, including:

• Requiring First Nations to invest some of their own wealth, such as settlement trusts.
• Coordinating between federal and provincial programs.
• Using independent review of proposals to minimize political influence.
• Monitoring the indebtedness of First Nations.
• Using loan guarantees for new projects rather than for the takeover of existing projects.

Loan guarantees involve real risks, and so it only makes sense to review the history of past successes and failures to better understand practical guidelines for the government's role in these larger infrastructure projects.

Learn more here, and be sure to share it on social media.

Sincerely,

Niels Veldhuis
President
The Fraser Institute