CALGARY, AB May 26, 2014 – Billions of dollars in threatened resource development depend on finding new approaches to building public support, a report from the Canada West Foundation says.

The Foundation today released a framework to find solutions to the challenges Canada’s resource industries face in earning public support for resource development. The framework responds to communities’ and stakeholders’ increased roles in development decisions.

“Canada’s current ad hoc approach to building public support for resource development is inadequate to the challenges ahead of us,” writes author Michael Cleland, Nexen Executive-in-Residence. “A more systematic approach is required before stakeholders can start to  reverse current trends.”

Cleland notes that issues around resource development are not new, and include health and safety, economic benefits and costs, and environmental and social impacts.

What is new, however, is the shift in societal forces at play. Cleland notes there is a general decline of deference and mistrust of elites, yielding more inherent power to communities. As a consequence, many methods used to move projects forward and influence public opinion may be either ineffective or counterproductive.

Cleland writes that greater effort to build public support should be placed at the local level, with an emphasis on improved performance. “A positive brand will only endure if it is based on solid and constantly improving performance at the local level.”

In the short term, these performance-driven efforts need to be led by industry and centred on engaging supporters in affected communities. In turn governments need to step up systematically to ensure the public policy, legislation and regulation needed to sustain progress.

The full report appears on this website.

The Canada West Foundation is the only think tank with an exclusive focus on the policies that shape the West’s quality of life. Through our evidence-based research and commentary, we provide the objective, practical solutions that governments need. For more than 40 years, we have been a passionate advocate for western Canada.