Canada's trillion dollar investment agenda now has the prime minister's own words behind it. Opening the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto this week, Mark Carney told the room it is time to build big projects that transform and connect the economy, and that shared leadership with Indigenous peoples sits at the centre of that mission.

More than 160 projects are on the table, but only 15 are described in the summit's own prospectus as shovel ready or fully permitted, among them the US$28.5 billion Ksi Lisims floating LNG terminal in northern British Columbia. Every one of those 160 projects crosses land where more than 500 First Nations hold constitutionally protected rights, and consultation with them is mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada without exception.

Charles Morven of Nisga'a Lisims Government set out exactly how that con ...