Province expands reach for Indigenous opportunities

By Lethbridge Herald on June 11, 2025.

Alexandra Noad
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC) mandate sectors will now include technology and healthcare to provide funding for Indigenous group and communities’ projects.

The AIOC was created in 2019 under former premier Jason Kenny as means to provide economic reconciliation to Indigenous people. 

When they began, they had the authority to provide $1 billion in loan guarantees and are now able to provide up to $3 billion in loan guarantees to communities that otherwise wouldn’t have access to that kind of capital.

Some of these projects include the Duchess Solar Project of the Cold Lake First Nation, Expansion of the Clearwater Midstream Assets for the Bigstone Cree Nation and the Wembley Gas Plant Co-Generation Facility which supports five First Nations in northern Alberta.

Rajan Shawhney, minister of Indigenous Relations, says the idea of expanding the AIOC to include healthcare and technology came from proposed projects that came to the AIOC’s leadership.

“There were a few proponents of projects that came to the IAOC leadership team and said, ‘hey these are projects that we’d be interested in talking about,’ but the corporation could talk about something that wasn’t in their mandate, so that’s why we expanded it.”

Since the announcement last week, Shawhney says she has received a lot of positive feedback.

“(Expanding to) technology and health care mean we’re opening doors to more opportunities, so I’ve been hearing from a number of stakeholders and partners and people who are quite interested in this organization and that is very good news.”

Many other provinces have followed Alberta’s lead in providing economic assistance to Indigenous-led projects. Prime Mister Mark Carney has announced the federal program has doubled the loan backstop from $5 billion to $10 billion.

Shawney believes Alberta being a leader in the success of the AIOC, it will help pave the way when it comes to discussion about pipelines and other infrastructure.