The Liaison Practice — Mining · Pipelines & Energy · Forestry
You can't claim trust with a Nation. Someone has to carry it in.
Every company says it is committed to Indigenous partnership. Nations have heard it for decades, and they can tell the difference in one meeting. What moves a mine, a pipeline, a power line or a forestry operation is a liaison who already has the relationships, knows how a Nation makes decisions, and has a thirty-year record on both sides of the table. That is what companies hire Willow-ICS to bring.
One skill. Every resource sector.
The work of building trust is the same whether the project is a deposit, a right-of-way or a cut block. What changes is the permits, the project timeline and what the Nation stands to gain. We know all three.
Mining & Mineral Development
From the first exploration season through partnership and benefit-agreement talks, at a time when critical minerals are a national priority and the Nation's consent sets the schedule.
Pipelines, Energy & Linear Infrastructure
A corridor crosses many territories and needs many relationships at once. Your team knows the corridor. We bring the regional relationships across Central Canada that a national roster rarely reaches, working inside your existing Indigenous-relations team.
Forestry & Natural Resources
Long-term tenure and harvest operations where community partnership, jobs and revenue sharing decide whether the operation runs for decades or stalls in year two. Darrel has worked this sector first-hand.
If you're frustrated, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.
Many companies have done everything right, with proper consultation, real offers and real respect, and still found the process slow and sometimes hostile. Some still hear about a mistake from years ago in the first meeting. From the Nation's side, raising it is homework, not hostility. Nobody at today's table is the villain. This is what happens when two ways of governing, two clocks, and a long history of broken promises meet on one project schedule.
The problem is built into the situation, which means it can be solved. Not with more patience or louder goodwill, but with a go-between both sides already trust, who can tell each side what the other cannot say and be believed. We tell Nations to come to the table as owners, with real structure and real advice. We give companies a straight read on pace, process and history, so goodwill lands where it builds the relationship.
On ownership, we say the same thing to both sides. Partnership runs from benefit agreements and jobs through revenue sharing to the Nation owning a share. A share is not right for every project: giving one up is real money over the life of a mine. So are the years lost to court cases and standstills. Where a Nation wants ownership, we build it to work, because projects built on real partnership are the ones that get financed and get built. Where it does not serve the project or the Nation, we say that too. Working out which structure fits, early, is exactly what you hire us to do.
A partnership that still holds in year ten.
Consultation is a legal duty. Free, prior and informed consent, the UNDRIP standard now in federal law, is the bar serious projects plan to. Partnership is what clears it. They are not the same thing, and projects fail in the gaps between them. A consultation file can be complete while the relationship under it is dead, and a dead relationship shows up at the worst time: at permitting, at financing, at construction.
The same Nations show up on project after project, and word travels between them faster than any company expects. An agreement a community later regrets is not a closed deal. It is a cost on your next three projects. A deal both sides would sign again in ten years is the only deal worth signing now.
We turn down work that fails that ten-year test. We have done it, and the fees went with it. That is how you know the standard is real.
From first contact to signed agreement, and after.
The work is sized to the stage of your project. Most start with a fixed-scope first mandate and continue on a monthly retainer through the key milestones.
Engagement Plan & Protocol
Who to approach, how, and in what order. A realistic plan built around how a Nation actually decides, with a schedule your board can rely on and a company ready to show up right.
Consultation Support
Help with Crown consultation and your own duties as a company, working alongside your permitting and legal teams.
Impact Benefit Agreement Support
Support in benefit-agreement talks that produces a deal both sides can live with: benefits, jobs, contracts, and the follow-through that survives signing day.
Joint Ventures & Ownership
Joint ventures, limited partnerships and ownership shares built to qualify for the new Indigenous loan guarantee programs and to hold up when the community looks closely.
Consultation Records
Every conversation, promise and follow-up tracked, so the record stands up to regulators, lenders and time. It protects both sides: a promise written down is a promise the Nation can hold you to.
Ongoing Community Relations
The relationship does not end at signing. Ongoing liaison keeps promises visible, keeps the lines open, and keeps small problems small.
Willow-ICS is not a law firm or financial advisor. We guide, connect and facilitate, and bring in qualified specialists where the file needs them.
Both sides of the table. Thirty years. One standard.
The relationships are real.
Chief-and-Council relationships across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario, built over thirty years of doing the work, not selling it. There is no shortcut to that.
The experience is two-sided.
Senior experience on the community side and the industry side, including mine-site reclamation, environmental cleanup and oil and gas operations. We know what each side needs, fears and means.
The incentive is aligned.
Our whole practice depends on Nations continuing to trust us. We cannot afford to help a company push through a deal a community will regret. That is exactly why our word carries weight at both tables.
A fixed first job. A retainer once it's earned.
No company should sign an open-ended contract with an advisor it has never worked with, and no advisor worth hiring asks for one.
Discovery conversation
A confidential call about your project, its stage, the Nations involved, and whether Willow-ICS is the right fit. Thirty minutes, no commitment.
Fixed first mandate
A fixed-scope, fixed-fee job, usually 60 to 90 days and usually in the low-to-mid five figures. You get an engagement plan, a map of the communities and their leadership, a risk assessment and a recommended path. You see exactly how we work before committing further.
Liaison retainer
Monthly liaison support through engagement, negotiation and agreement, with success milestones set up front so we are paid for results, not hours.
Follow-through & records
Liaison after the agreement, tracking of every promise, and the records that keep the partnership working and the file defensible.
When the project needs more than engagement.
For projects still in development, we go past liaison into the owner's own planning: the structure, budget and management the project needs to move from idea to development while the partnership work goes on beside it. Where it fits, Darrel joins the owner's team as a senior member, working alongside the technical and financial leads.
First Mandates
Fixed 60–90 day jobs that produce the development-phase picture: who holds rights and interests, the engagement plan, the risks, and a costed path forward.
Management Team & Development Plan
Designing and building the management team, budgeting the development phase, and planning delivery, including senior service on the owner's team where the project needs it.
Partnership & Ownership Structure
Nation ownership structures built to qualify for Indigenous loan guarantee programs and to hold up when the community looks closely. Often the difference between a project that gets financed and one that doesn't.
The standard does not change when industry pays.
When Willow-ICS arrives with a company, that is not a reason to lower your guard. It means the company agreed to be held to a standard. Every industry job we take has to pass the ten-year test, and we turn down the ones that do not. We will never work for a company and for your Nation on the same project, and we will tell you who hired us in the first conversation. Those rules apply on every file, whoever pays the invoice.
Read our published conflict rules →
What Willow-ICS does for First Nations →
Talk to us before the project needs it.
The best engagement work happens early, before positions harden and schedules tighten. A confidential thirty-minute call is the right first step.
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