First Nations co-own grid infrastructure: systemic shift in energy sovereignty amid colonial legacies
Original framing: “First Nations power up ownership” — bing news
Energy infrastructure in North America has long been built on the dispossession of Indigenous lands, from the forced relocation of communities to make way for dams to the denial of land title for energy corridors. The 1876 Indian Act in Canada systematically excluded First Nations from energy governance, a legacy that this 'historic' deal only partially addresses. Historical parallels exist in the Māori fight against hydroelectric dams in New Zealand, where Indigenous resistance led to the 1987 Treaty of Waitangi settlement recognizing *tino rangatiratanga* (chiefly authority) over resources.
This 'historic' co-ownership deal is a symptom of a deeper reckoning: the energy transition cannot be decolonized without dismantling the colonial structures that built the grid in the first place.
The Anishinaabe principle of *minobimaatisiiwin* and the Māori concept of *kaitiakitanga* reveal that energy is not a commodity but a communal responsibility, challenging the privatized model of this transmission line. Yet the deal also exposes the limits of corporate-led reconciliation, where Indigenous communities negotiate from positions of structural disadvantage, forced to accept financial stakes in projects built on stolen land. The trickster irony is that Hydro One, a corporation born from colonial dispossession, now performs allyship through a 'partnership' that obscures its extractive roots. True energy sovereignty requires land restitution, Indigenous-led governance, and reparations—not just co-ownership of corporate infrastructure. Without these, this milestone risks becoming another chapter in the colonial playbook of 'development' masquerading as progress.