Canada’s “ad hoc” approach to gaining public support for resource development is not working, and a more systematic approach would pay real dividends, says a new study.
The Canada West Foundation study started with two premises: that efforts by individual companies, governments and communities must be reinforced by collective efforts at many levels, and that more emphasis should be placed on improving performance in communities touched by resource development.
The study followed a workshop last December, when Canada West staff met with industry and government leaders in Victoria, B.C., to canvas how best to gain a social licence for resource development.
“The essential ingredient in renewed public support is real improvement in how companies perform on the ground,” says the paper by Michael Cleland, Canada West’s current Nexen executive-in-residence. A better understanding of what’s happening locally will underpin broader public support, both domestically and externally, he wrote.
Increasingly, companies face a changing society, one showing less deference and more mistrust of elites. This more fragmented society has seen narrow interest groups driving their agendas in local areas, with little concern for the broader public good, the study said. Striking a balance between accommodating these interests and allowing society to function has thus become more difficult.
Practically speaking, current trends mean local communities have gained more power, while the methods often used by elites, including efforts to advance projects or sway public opinion through advertising, may be ineffective or counterproductive, Cleland wrote.
For resource companies trying to build public support, the most critical choice may be whether to direct most effort at the local level, with an emphasis on performance, or at the societal level, where the emphasis is more on communications strategies.
Analysis of the matter “argues for placing priority at the local level because this is where the issues are most visceral, because positively-inclined local voices are necessary … for establishing and maintaining public support,” the study said.
At the same time, the only long-term route to a more stable environment for getting public support means governments at all levels must be more active and systematic in everything from land-use planning and environmental regulation to scientific monitoring and the duty to consult Aboriginal communities.
Going forward, Cleland outlined a roadmap for improving the Canadian landscape for future resource development, highlighting areas for improvement. “Some things,” he concluded, “are truly broken and need attention right now.”
While Canada boasts a wealth of capability in its regulatory processes, “public mistrust of government and … regulatory systems means many decisions lack perceived legitimacy,” he wrote. As a result, these decisions are increasingly the focus of legal action, political protest or civil disobedience.
“This will not change quickly, but there is an urgent need to start reversing a disturbing trend,” he concluded, suggesting some work lies ahead in terms of rebuilding public belief that regulators are competent, objective and fair.
On another note, Canada needs a “credible way forward” when it comes to managing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), Cleland said. While this country has “world-leading” management measures in place, governments and industry nonetheless need to ask what it would take for Canada’s actions on GHG management — covering everything from resource industries to energy use — to be seen as credible at home and abroad.
Yet, sooner or later, Canada would also have to face the fact that a resource-based economy is constrained in the GHG reductions it can achieve, something “we have a duty to explain … to our citizenry and the world,” he said.
At the local level, resource companies have to deal with the expectations of communities like First Nations, who are “ever more deeply anchored in the notion” that their consent is necessary for resource development to proceed. He cited a set of United Nations principles that, read literally, would put a veto in the hands of every aboriginal community.
“While in some general sense, it is easy to agree that it is better if local communities consent, it is also obvious that such a principle places power in local hands to thwart not just the national interest, but the interests of nearby communities as well,” he wrote.
Yet, in a pluralistic political system like Canada’s, the governing social contract requires recognition of the need for balance, which in turn requires a more coherent, less ideological conversation” than has occurred thus far in Canada, he argued.
Cleland also called for a measured approach to building public support, one that can enhance stability and even contain project costs in the longer term. On the other hand, a “reactive, crisis-driven approach with inadequate attention to costs will do the opposite and quite possibly tip the investor calculus against Canadian resources,” he wrote.
