The Old Way is Broken, Let's Be Honest
Let’s face it, the traditional model for getting a major energy project off the ground in Canada was a dog's dinner. A company would spend a fortune on plans, then enter a long, drawn-out process of ‘consultation’ with local and Indigenous communities. This often translated into a cycle of town hall meetings, impact payments, and lingering resentment.
The result? Projects faced years of delays, ballooning costs, and a constant cloud of uncertainty. For an investor, that uncertainty is poison. You could back a project with fantastic economics, only to see it tied up in knots for a decade. It was a system that created adversaries, not partners, and it has cost the sector dearly. Why, you might ask, did it take so long for anyone to realise that simply trying to buy people off doesn't build a sustainable business?