Meaningful Indigenous Community Engagement Crucial to Project Success in Canada

Jeremiah Pariag Shares Insights on Effectively Engaging Indigenous Communities

Collaboration with Indigenous communities is no longer just a best practice when planning, designing and building critical infrastructure in Canada. It is now a crucial element of project success.

Indigenous concerns often differ from those encountered in other public outreach. In addition to typical public concerns such as community character and construction disruptions, Indigenous concerns are also often rooted in culture and history, such as the protection of traditional lands and treaty rights. To effectively engage Indigenous communities, a more intentional and customized outreach strategy is necessary.

HDR’s Jeremiah Pariag shared his experience with Indigenous community engagement in the November/December issue of Environmental Science & Engineering magazine. Jeremiah is currently leading Indigenous engagement for several private land development projects in Canada. For the past two years, he has led Indigenous relations on the Ontario Line transit project, a new CA$27 billion subway under construction in downtown Toronto. Pariag is playing a key role in strengthening relationships between Indigenous communities and the infrastructure owner, including developing a training manual to guide the contractor on building relationships with Indigenous community members. 

Read the full article "Meaningful Indigenous Community Engagement Delivers Better Project Outcomes."