Atikameksheng Anishnawbek

Consultation Protocol Development

Our team, working in partnership with McLeod Wood Associates, was contracted by Atikameksheng to develop an effective and efficient Consultation Protocol that would enable them to work with proponents and government agencies operating within their traditional territories while asserting and protecting the communities rights and interests. Through meetings and interviews with community members, administrative staff and elected officials, our team developed an understanding of the challenges the consultation process was posing.

We collaborated with the community’s consultation office to develop a vision for a consultation protocol that would be supported by the community, feasible to implement within the community administration’s current structure and based on both our experience and best practice examples of consultation protocols from across Canada. 

We delivered not only an “outward facing” protocol document, but also an “inward facing” set of systems, tools, and capacity development recommendations to improve the performance of the organization in managing the consultation workload. 

Project Impact

Our work enabled the community to more clearly articulate their rights and interests while providing certainty to governments and industry about the community’s expectations for a meaningful consultation and accommodation process. We helped the community to achieve the balance of preserving and enhancing the natural environment while creating opportunities for economic prosperity and leveraging the consultation and accommodation process so that it generates net benefits for the organization and the community.