Nations Rising, A Nisga’a Story, is a recently released documentary that explores the Nisga’a Nation’s remarkable history of resilience and the vision behind their company, Nations Royalty, Canada’s largest majority Indigenous-owned public company.
Nations Royalty is leveraging new tools and resources to help Indigenous peoples gain access to capital markets to create sustainable wealth to strengthen their communities for generations to come.
In the past the Nisga’a Nation fought for British Columbia’s first modern day treaty. A landmark in the relationship between Canada and its Aboriginal peoples, the treaty came into effect on May 11, 2000, marking the end of a 113-year journey. When the Nisga’a Final Agreement was signed the Indian Act ceased to apply to the Nisg̱a’a people.
The Nisg̱a’a Final Agreement is the first treaty in British Columbia to provide constitutional certainty in respect of an Aboriginal people’s Section 35 right to self-government. It recognizes Nisg̱a’a Lands and opens the door for joint economic initiatives in the development of the Nisg̱a’a Nation’s natural resources, it says on the Nisga’a Lisims Government website.
In the documentary Brian Tait, former executive chair, Nisga’a Lisims Government, said all the chiefs made a decision to work together, knowing solidarity equals strength, as they gathered to negotiate the Nisga’a Final Agreement. The same could be said for the development of their company, Nations Royalty.
The documentary showcases compelling insights shared by Nisga’a Nation elders, Nations Royalty executives and investment professionals.
“We’ve moved into an age of technology and innovation,” Tait said.
“Nisga’a has always been part of the leadership for innovation. We’ve always done these things first like the Treaty. Now these major projects with Nations Royalty will generate a lot of resources for our future leadership and so for us right now - today’s leadership - we have to ensure that future leadership has all of the tools to manage wealth.”
Nations Royalty is the tool to get the Nisga’a Nation and other Indigenous groups to their vision of independence, whatever that might look like for them, Kody Penner, vice president of corporate development for Nations Royalty, said.
“The documentary is about hope, it’s about working towards independence and it’s about the struggle that all Indigenous people have faced so I think it connects with everybody,” Penner said.
“Nations Royalty looks to pool Indigenous wealth through mining impact benefit agreements so the financial payments through those go into a public company to give Indigenous people access to their economic sovereignty.”
The company follows the traditional mining royalty business model, which has been done for more than 30 years and many companies follow it, Penner added.
“It’s been very, very successful,” Penner said.
“It’s given their shareholders returns that are much higher and we follow that same business model but we’re doing it for the first time ever in the Indigenous space. So there’s never been an Indigenous-owned company, let alone an Indigenous-owned royalty company. So what we look to do is to partner with Indigenous groups from across Canada and potentially internationally, by trading or exchanging payments that they would normally receive from a mining asset now and into the future for ownership in Nations Royalty today. As we bring on more partners and we get more payments coming in from different mines across Canada we hope and expect that our valuation will rise just as other companies have and we can create a very strong, highly valued, royalty company with a bunch of Indigenous ownership from different parts of Canada and provide long term stable financial returns for our shareholders who are primarily Indigenous.”
The documentary was a joint effort between Nisga’a Nation and Nations Royalty.
“Frank Giustra is one of the main shareholders of Nations Royalty, head of Fiore Group and is one of the cofounders of Lionsgate Studio,” Penner said.
“Frank has a great vision for storytelling and the great impact of it and same with the Fiore Group’s Rob Mcleod, who grew up in Nisga’a Territory, and has a long history with their leadership. He got together with them and they decided that this was the best way to tell their story because it is such a unique and cool initiative that’s never been done before. We needed to get it across to people in a way that truly uncovers why they did this and the struggles that they went through as a nation because it connects with other nations.”
Creating Nations Royalty was such a progressive move, Penner added.
“This story has to be told because of the magnitude of this,” Penner said.
“This has never been done before. There’s never been an Indigenous group that’s like this. The documentary was the best way to tell the Nisga’a story and why they would take this leap towards independence.”
To view the Nations Rising documentary visit www.youtube.com/watchNationsRising.
