Highlights
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) is creating processes and technology solutions to track and report on historical road impacts. This provides the opportunity to improve the Province’s relationship with First Nations by increasing transparency and allowing MOTI’s Indigenous relations teams to learn from other negotiations, develop creative solutions, and create a more coordinated approach. MOTI will now be able to track and report on the status of important relationships or historical road impact agreements and highlight benefits for First Nation communities.
MOTI recognizes that the historical road impact negotiations with First Nations partners are complex, time consuming and can take years to resolve. This new system for storing, tracking and reporting information has a spatial component, which will allow MOTI to understand current and future negotiations so MOTI can plan and resource accordingly. Because this information will now be easily accessible, MOTI can share information transparently, which will help progress negotiations. Currently, MOTI has 59 active negotiations to resolve historical road impacts on reserve, treaty and title land, and 11 projects with a signed agreement in various stages of implementation.
How are we working together?
MOTI meets regularly with First Nations that have active negotiations to resolve historical road impacts on reserve, treaty and title land. These negotiations can include a broader relationship agreement to outline how MOTI and involved First Nations will co-ordinate future discussions related to MOTI activities on reserve, treaty or title land.
Each negotiation is unique, and with the help of a centrally tracked system, MOTI will be able to share information of ongoing and upcoming negotiations more transparently with First Nations partners.
Are there challenges?
These complex road impact negotiations require time and resources from both MOTI and First Nations partners. After the implementation of the central tracking system, interests to resolve the historical road impacts on reserve, treaty and title land could increase within negotiations. The new system will create internal efficiencies that will support MOTI staff and resourcing to help meet these demands. MOTI is ensuring that the new system can keep sensitive information related to these negotiations secure and private by utilizing secure platforms and data storage. The release date for the new centralized project management tool will be announced later in 2024. Substantive progress has been made and the cross-government team creating the tool has started rolling out targeted training. Project data will be entered this summer.