Photo of a TNDC land clearing crew (First Nations Inc.: Tahltan-AltaGas partnership a win-win, Vancouver Sun)
AltaGas Ltd which located in Calgary started work on run-of- river power development in northwest of Terrace. AltaGas Ltd decided to enlist the Tahltan Nation Development Corp., which is a First Nation Business, as a partner on the project.
TNDC CEO Garry Merkel said ‘any enterprise they undertake can’t compromise the Tahltan’s aboriginal rights or their land and has to offer more positive than negative social impacts.’ (Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, 2014) This is means AltaGas Ltd’s business model changes because of this partnership. Tahltan community beomes one of the stakeholders of Altagas Ltd. Altagas has to consider Tahltan’s aboriginal rights and their land, and even their aboriginal society when doing the project. Otherwise, the partnership may not loner exist.
TNDC is offering a ‘ready-made workforce’ to AltaGas Ltd. and ‘very helpful in providing services such as heavy equipment operators, road maintenance and ccamp facilities’ (Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, 2014). This is not only allows AltaGas to reduce its labor costs, furthermore as the First nations ‘know the environment, and they know the land’, AltaGas Ltd reduces time and costs in researching and investigating the environment, and switch those costs to other areas. If there is no partnership between AltaGas Ltd, and Tahltan Nation Development Corp., AltaGas may have to spend much of the time and costs in understanding the area before project started.
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