Sustainable economic development means committing ourselves to generate economic opportunities for our Peoples today while upholding our responsibility to the lands and the waters for future generations.

We believe that everything that we need to sustain us is contained in the resources of our Mother Earth. Thus “sustainable development” must be exercised and developed not only to the benefits of our generations today, but that today’s development will not leave our future generations without these same benefits from sustainable resources.

Our Nations have the inherent right, as reaffirmed through the Treaties, the UNDRIP, and the Canadian Constitution, to protect, develop and utilize our traditional territories. The Treaty relationship stipulates the sharing of resources within our territories, as well as the free, prior and informed consent required by our Nations for any development on these lands.

We have a critical role to play in making sustainable development a reality in Canada, given our responsibilities for managing the lands, the importance of honouring Creation and the earth to our way of life, and the fact that we are most often the first to experience the impacts of environmental change and damage.

First Nations seek to build relationships with industry and commercial sectors, and foresee ourselves as players at all levels of the economy, but these relationships must be built on our inherent right to assert jurisdiction over our traditional territories.