Three deals, ten days: how First Nations are now financing ownership, and what it means for clean fuel

Co-ownership has always been the easy part to say and the hard part to finance. In the past ten days, three deals showed that the financing problem is being solved, and that quietly changes what is possible for clean fuel.

Between June 15 and June 23, three First Nations groups closed equity stakes in Canadian energy projects. Near Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, M-Squared Renewables, an Indigenous development corporation owned by ten First Nations, took majority (51%) ownership of the 200 MW Rose Valley Wind project, backed by a $36.4 million Indigenous equity loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. In northern Manitoba, Ottawa committed $21.6 million to help Sayisi Dene First Nation build the province's first integrated renewable microgrid at Tadoule Lake. And on June 23, seven Williams Treaties First Nations secured roughly $700 million toward an ownership stake in the Darlington small modular reactor, the largest Indigenous loan guarantee in Canadian history.

Three projects, three technologies, three provinces. What links them is not the megawatts. It is the capital structure. Each deal used a public financing tool built for a single purpose: to let a community buy in as an owner rather than wait on the sidelines for a royalty cheque.

The machinery has finally caught up to the principle

For years, the gap between "First Nations should own this" and a signed financing agreement was wide. Communities were offered seats at the table but rarely the capital to own the table. That is the gap these tools were built to close, and they are now substantial. The federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program, doubled to $10 billion in 2025 and run through the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation, backs guarantees from $20 million to $1 billion per transaction. The Canada Infrastructure Bank layers in equity loans on top. By lowering the cost of capital, they let a community hold real equity instead of a token share.

The Darlington deal shows the scale this now reaches. About $715 million in guaranteed debt is turning a loan guarantee into an ownership stake in Canada's first grid-scale reactor. The Rose Valley deal shows the everyday version: a $36.4 million equity loan is the difference between 51% ownership and a minority position. Same idea, two ends of the same ladder.

Communities were offered seats at the table but rarely the capital to own it. That is the gap that closed this month.

Why this is the most important story for clean fuel

This is the part that matters most to Solum. We were built on the premise that First Nations should be co-owners of clean-fuel projects from the first conversation, not consulted parties at the end of one. When the financing did not exist, that premise depended on goodwill and patience. Now it depends on structure, and the structure is here.

One thing stands out when you line up the past ten days. Almost all of this capital has flowed to wind, transmission, and nuclear. Clean fuel, green hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and biomass methanol, has so far drawn far less of it, even though it fits the model cleanly. A loan guarantee that can underwrite a reactor can underwrite an RNG facility that turns forestry residue into pipeline-grade gas, or a methanol plant on partnered land. The feedstock sits in the community. The jobs sit in the community. There is no reason the ownership should not sit there too.

That is the opening Solum is built to use. The communities we work with are not looking for a one-time payment for access to their land. They are looking to own the asset that sits on it, and to capture the value over its full life. The financing tools that closed three deals this month are the same tools that can put a clean-fuel project into community hands.

The question for 2026 is no longer whether First Nations will own Canadian energy. The financing answered that. The question is which projects, and which developers, are structured to use it when the capital is offered. That is the work, and it is the work we came to do.