Since the days of the Whitehorse Mining Initiative in 1994, the mining industry in Canada has increasingly focused on improving its relationship with Indigenous communities. While there is always room for improvement, today the mining industry is recognized as one of the few industries creating meaningful economic opportunities for Indigenous peoples and communities. Agreements, commonly known as Impact Benefit Agreements or IBAs, are currently the primary tool used by communities and companies to identify and realize these opportunities.
Despite their importance, existing research has primarily focused on the content of agreements and negotiation approaches - there is less information on what successful implementation of an agreement looks like, and the key factors that influence implementation success. Drawing on relevant literature and interviews with stakeholders and rightsholders, Stratos has been identifying these factors. This presentation will summarize preliminary findings from this research, including a life-cycle framework that identifies implementation success factors in four stages: pre-negotiation, negotiation, implementation, and monitoring as well as factors that cut across all stages.