Honouring the rights and interests of Indigenous groups

Learn more about how we engage with Indigenous groups at: waki-aiai.net/indigenous

As rightsholders, Indigenous groups have a distinct relationship to the land, so we recognize that our business activities have the potential to affect them in tangible ways.
We engage with potentially affected Indigenous groups throughout the lifecycle of our assets to understand and respond to their concerns, identify opportunities and facilitate participation on our projects.
This is not new for us — we have been engaging with Indigenous groups for more than 40 years. While we’ve been working with Indigenous groups since the 1970’s, our commitment to Indigenous engagement was formalized in 1982, when NOVA Corp. — which later merged with TC Energy in 1998 — adopted a Native Employment and Business Opportunities Policy, with key programs focusing on Indigenous education, employment and business opportunities.
Today, we have active relationships with more than 200 Indigenous groups across the continent.
We have a dedicated Indigenous Relations team of more than 70 employees across the continent.
Our employees work closely with the Indigenous groups impacted by our business activities, striving to earn the respect and trust required to establish and grow positive mutually beneficial relationships for generations to come.

Our policies and practices for engagement with Indigenous groups are informed by our corporate values of safety, responsibility, collaboration and integrity, conform with all applicable laws and regulations, and respect the spirit and intent of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), its guiding principles and other international and national law.
Our Canadian Aboriginal Relations Policy was first established in 2000, building on the original Native Employment and Business Opportunities Policy adopted in 1982. Since then, a strategy, guiding principles and additional updates to our policy have been established to further inform and improve our approach to Indigenous engagement across North America.

We engage with local Indigenous groups to identify, gather and incorporate Indigenous knowledge about the local ecology, land and resource use into project planning and operations activities.
Our growing Indigenous monitoring programs facilitate Indigenous community members observing pipeline construction activities first-hand and reporting their findings back to their communities. The programs provide community members with industry experience in monitoring activities. Their active participation is a demonstration of our confidence in our high standards during construction as well as an example of our accountability and transparency on projects.
We depend on the expertise of Indigenous businesses to advance our projects: we offer business opportunities, employment and jobs to qualified and competitive Indigenous contractors and suppliers.
In 2020, $725+ million was spent supporting Indigenous and Native American business through subcontracts, purchase of materials and services and Indigenous individuals through employment.

The Indigenous Relations team works with Indigenous groups to identify their needs and priorities for community legacy initiatives that protect, educate, support and sustain communities.
In 2020, we invested $8.8+ million in more than 600 Indigenous partners and students across North America through the TC Energy Scholarship and community legacy programs.
We are committed to helping build community capacity, by supporting skills development of the local Indigenous workforce through workplace training and education initiatives in the communities where we do business.

We’ve been providing Indigenous awareness training sessions to employees and contractors across the continent since 2001 and continue to work on opportunities to improve our approach to our Indigenous awareness training.
Every year, we celebrate Indigenous Awareness Week in Canada and Native American Heritage Month in the U.S, encouraging employees to continually enhance their understanding and appreciation of the history, heritage, diverse cultures and contributions of the original inhabitants of North America.