This bill replaces the existing regulatory slot in the Territorial Lands Act and changes what the federal government may require when it writes regulations governing the acquisition of mining rights and the payment of royalties on territorial lands. It leaves regulatory authority with the Governor in Council but adds mandatory requirements that will shape the content and conditions of any future regulations.
The change matters because it makes Indigenous consent and surface‑holder protections statutory prerequisites for any regulations that govern how mining rights are granted or transferred on territorial lands. That alters the legal baseline for permitting and tenure in the territories and will affect industry, territorial administrators, Indigenous governments and holders of surface interests.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill replaces section 12 of the Territorial Lands Act to authorize federal regulations governing acquisition of mining rights “in, under or on” territorial lands and the payment of royalties, and requires those regulations to (a) provide for free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Inuit and any other Indigenous peoples who would be directly affected, and (b) provide for protection of and compensation to holders of surface rights.
Who It Affects
The provision primarily touches the federal executive (Governor in Council), resource developers and mining titleholders, territorial land administrators (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut arrangements), Inuit and other Indigenous peoples in the territories, and private or public holders of surface interests (landowners, settlement corporations, municipalities).
Why It Matters
By making FPIC and surface‑rights protections mandatory parts of the regulatory framework, the bill raises the bar for how mining tenure and royalties are structured in the territories. Practically, that changes the negotiation and compliance landscape for projects on territorial lands and creates new legal and administrative questions about how consent and compensation are defined, documented and enforced.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Bill C‑326 rewrites the single regulatory provision in the Territorial Lands Act so that when the federal government creates rules about who may acquire mining rights on federal territorial lands and how royalties are paid, those rules must include two specific elements: a requirement for free, prior and informed consent from Inuit and any other Indigenous peoples who would be directly affected; and mechanisms to protect and compensate holders of surface rights.
The bill leaves the authority to make regulations where it already sits—with the Governor in Council (the federal cabinet)—but narrows what those regulations may look like by imposing the consent and surface‑rights conditions. That means Ottawa will design regulatory instruments (and any royalty schemes) to include consent processes and compensation frameworks rather than leaving those issues entirely to administrative practice or adjudication after the fact.Operationally, the text raises several practical questions the regulations will need to resolve: how to demonstrate FPIC (what process, record or agreement satisfies the requirement), who qualifies as “directly affected,” and how protection or compensation for surface‑right holders will be calculated and delivered.
The bill does not itself define consent procedures or compensation formulas; it makes those items mandatory elements of future regulations.Because the change applies specifically to territorial lands, it interacts with existing territorial and Indigenous land regimes—like negotiated land claim agreements, surface‑ownership regimes in settlement areas, and distinct permitting practices in Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. In some places the new statutory requirement will overlap with, and in others it will supplement, existing agreements and administrative protocols.
The measure therefore shifts much of the policy detail into the regulatory drafting and implementation phase, where the hardest choices about scope, timing and remedies will be made.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill replaces section 12 of the Territorial Lands Act and keeps regulation-making power with the Governor in Council rather than delegating it elsewhere.
Regulations under the new section must provide for the free, prior and informed consent of Inuit and any other Indigenous peoples who would be directly affected by acquisition of mining rights.
The statutory language covers acquisition of mining rights “in, under or on” territorial lands, signaling that surface, subsurface and overlapping claims are within scope.
Regulations must also provide for protection of and compensation to holders of surface rights, creating a standalone statutory obligation distinct from the FPIC clause.
The ministerial/regulatory authority extends to the payment of royalties in respect of the acquisition of mining rights, so royalty schemes can be set or constrained through the same regulatory exercise.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Federal regulatory authority retained, with new prerequisites
This is the structural change: the bill preserves the federal cabinet’s power to make regulations about acquiring mining rights and royalty payments on territorial lands but makes that power conditional. Practically, Ottawa still controls the form of tenure on territorial Crown lands, yet the content of any regulations must now include the elements described in the following subsections. For administrators and drafters, that means regulation-writing will be an exercise in balancing statutory consent and compensation requirements with policy objectives for resource development.
Mandatory free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) requirement
Subsection (a) mandates that regulations “provide that any such acquisition requires the free, prior and informed consent of Inuit and of any other Indigenous peoples who would be directly affected by it.” The provision is textually broad: it names Inuit explicitly and then extends the consent duty to any other Indigenous peoples who would be directly affected. The mechanics—how consent is sought, who counts as directly affected, the timeframe for prior consent and whether consent can be withheld or conditioned—are left to regulatory design and will determine the provision’s practical bite.
Protection and compensation for surface‑rights holders
Subsection (b) requires regulations to provide for safeguarding and compensating holders of surface rights. This creates an express statutory duty to address the interests of parties who hold rights in the surface layer—private landowners, settlement corporations, municipalities or others—when mining rights are acquired. The mechanics—compensation formulas, timing, dispute resolution and interaction with existing land‑claim compensation mechanisms—will be matters for the regulations and can materially affect project economics and title insurance.
Regulatory reach over royalties and acquisition conditions
Although concise, the bill ties royalty regulation to the same statutory provision, meaning Ottawa can set or constrain royalty payment requirements as part of the acquisition regime. That gives the Governor in Council a single instrument to address tenure, revenue sharing and the procedural prerequisites (consent and compensation) for entering the mining tenure system on territorial lands.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Inuit organizations and other Indigenous communities directly situated near mineral potential — they gain a statutory claim to FPIC that strengthens their leverage in negotiations and can secure prior agreements, benefits or veto-like protections depending on how regulations are drafted.
- Holders of surface rights (private landowners, settlement corporations, municipal jurisdictions) — the bill requires explicit protection and compensation mechanisms, reducing the risk that surface interests will be overridden without remedy.
- Indigenous governments and mandated organizations — statutory consent creates a clearer legal basis for asserting participation, benefit-sharing and control over development pathways, which can be turned into negotiated economic and governance outcomes.
Who Bears the Cost
- Mining companies, prospecting firms and investors — developers will face higher transaction costs: securing consent, meeting compensation obligations, and absorbing longer pre‑development timelines or contested consent processes.
- Federal departments and the Governor in Council — Ottawa must draft detailed regulations, create administrative processes for assessing FPIC and oversee compensation mechanisms, generating capacity needs and potential legal exposure.
- Territorial administrators and land registries — administrators will need to reconcile the new regulatory requirements with existing territorial and settlement governance structures, update tenure procedures and potentially manage disputes between surface and mineral interests.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between honoring Indigenous self‑determination through a statutory FPIC requirement and preserving a clear, predictable mineral tenure and revenue regime that attracts investment; the bill solves for stronger Indigenous protections but pushes the hard questions—definition of consent, scope of ‘directly affected’, and practical compensation mechanisms—into regulatory drafting, where trade‑offs between legal certainty and meaningful consent will be decided.
The bill creates a high‑level statutory floor but leaves most operational detail to delegated regulations. That delegation produces two practical tensions.
First, FPIC is a normative concept with contested legal content: does it require unanimity among affected Indigenous people, a negotiated agreement with Indigenous governments, or evidence of meaningful engagement and accommodation? The text does not define consent, who determines whether it has been given, or what remedies follow a failure to obtain it.
Regulators will have to translate a political and human‑rights standard into administrative tests, thresholds and processes that can be enforced and judicially reviewed.
Second, the consent requirement and surface‑rights compensation duty will interact unpredictably with existing land claim agreements, territorial statutes and private contracts. Some land claims already contain consultation, benefit, and resource management regimes; others leave more authority to the Crown.
Where those regimes conflict or overlap, the regulations will need to set rules for primacy, coordination and dispute resolution. Finally, the obligation to provide compensation to surface‑holders risks creating parallel or duplicative compensation processes if not harmonized with existing claim‑based compensation rules, raising cost and implementation questions for both government and industry.
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