First Nations Bank of Canada: Shareholders List

Source: Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan

As of March 1, 2023

Neyaskweyahk Holdings GP Ltd., Alberta, 18.80%

Atuqtuarvik Corporation, Nunavut, 14.32%

Saskatchewan Indian Equity Foundation Inc., Saskatchewan, 13.61%

Toronto-Dominion Bank, 13.29%

James Bay Eeyou Corp., Quebec, 12.92%

Cree Regional Authority Board of Compensation, Quebec, 6.05%

Gwich’in Settlement Corp., Northwest Territories, 4.73%

Onion Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, 2.47%

Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., 2.31%

TCIG of Manitoba Ltd., Manitoba, 2.17%

Champagne Aishihik Trust, Yukon, 1.52%

Dáanaa Jíli (Cache)Trust, Yukon, 1.24%

Ta’an Kwach’an Council, Yukon, 1.18%

Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, Yukon, 1.18%

Vuntut Gwitchin Trust, Yukon, 1.18%

Enoch Cree Investment Ltd., Alberta, 0.97%

Dana Naye Ventures, Yukon, 0.76%

Yukon Indian Development Corp., Yukon, 0.76%

Individual Social Impact Investors, 0.36%

Saskatchewan First Nations (63), 0.18%

--HBB

Charity That Runs Luxury Newfoundland Inn Gets $181,967 Grant for Overseas Marketing Campaign

The charity that operates a Newfoundland inn charging thousands of dollars per night received federal funding to develop a marketing campaign aimed at attracting visitors from outside Canada.

The $181,967 grant came from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), which says Shorefast Foundation will "undertake a targeted sales and marketing campaign to grow the international visitor market." The funding adds to the millions of federal dollars that Shorefast and its affiliates have received over two decades to build and operate the 29-room luxury inn and develop Fogo Island, located about 400 kilometers north of St. John's, as a tourist destination.

Federal grants and loans to Shorefast have totaled $11.4 million, including a $6.5 million infrastructure grant in 2008 and a pandemic-era, interest-free loan in 2021 of almost $2 million, which was among the 35 largest of 1,400 contributions extended by ACOA that year. Last year, the foundation received a $389,300 grant from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to "support the development and implementation of oceans conservation and management activities in Canada."

Shorefast was founded by Zita Cobb, a Fogo Island native who made a fortune during the 1990s technology boom. The inn has been ranked among the 50 best hotels in the world by Conde Nast Traveler, and Shorefast and Cobb have won praise for restoring artifacts and buildings from the island’s centuries-old fishing culture and bolstering the economic well-being of islanders. The building has garnered plaudits for its architecture, and Shorefast describes the inn as "a community-centred social business."

Room rates based on a three-night stay in early November range between $1,975 and $6,075 per night including meals but before taxes and fees. Including fees, the lower-priced room is priced at $2,271.25 per night. Shorefast valued its land and buildings at $50.7 million in a December 2023 tax filing and spent $3.5 million on charitable activities during the year.

--HBB

Joint-venture company whose directors include former Newfoundland premier positions for profits amid government support for "green" development

It was a blustery summer's day on Newfoundland's Placentia Bay, and some of Canada's most influential politicians were on hand to celebrate the launch of a sleepy industrial port into the vanguard of the green revolution.

Against a backdrop of heavy equipment and distant coast line, then-Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan praised the union jobs coming to the Port of Argentia thanks to governments funding half the cost of a $100 million (US$72 million) dock expansion. O'Regan then made the case for clean-fuel tax credits that will redevelop the 9,000-acre site, a one-time U.S. military base that hosted, in 1941, the first meeting between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The next speaker was Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who sought to place the port in a broader context.

"I really can't emphasize too much the extent to which you, the people of Argentia, are actually at the very centre of probably the most important thing happening in the world today," Freeland said at the August 2023 event, which came a month after the federal government had pledged $38 million toward doubling the port's cargo capacity . "You are so close to becoming a global hub for renewable energy."

Absent in a video recording of the event, which included remarks from the local member of Parliament and an executive advancing a $1.5 billion ammonia project on port lands, were directors of a joint-venture company that will reap benefits if the port fulfills the vision on display that day.

Directors

The directors of the company, Argentia Capital Inc., are Dwight Ball, the Liberal Party premier of Newfoundland between 2015 and 2020; a consultant whose familiarity with the port goes back three decades; the chief executive of an investment firm that has a 50% stake in Argentia Capital; and the chief executive of the port, which holds the other 50%.

The joint-venture company has been positioned to capitalize on federal and provincial subsidies amid efforts to attract jobs and tax revenue tied to less polluting forms of energy. Canada's federal government has committed to spending as much as $200 billion combatting climate change, and the provinces are contributing billions of dollars more.

"For many years there has been an emphasis on clean-energy investing, which has been supported by all levels of government," Ball said in response to emailed questions. "I feel this (green-energy) transition will take many years and will include taking incremental steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while not abandoning our needs of today and our current use of traditional energy industries."

The federal grant made last year will help boost the port's yearly capacity to 400,000 tonnes - a small fraction of the cargo handled by the ports of Halifax and St. John's. The Cooper Cove expansion envisions adding three cranes to the existing three and installing equipment that allows vehicles and wheel-based transporters to roll onto ships. The number of full-time employees at the port could increase 75% to 700 over the next five years, Chris Newhook, the port's vice president of strategy and growth, said in an interview.

Funding the Expansion

Funding for the larger dock will be supplemented by $15 million from the Province of Newfoundland & Labrador and $30 million from Pattern Energy Group, the San Francisco-based entity developing the ammonia plant. Pattern Energy has a Canadian connection: it is controlled by Canada's largest pension fund.

The improvements are just one piece of the action unfolding at Placentia Bay, which hosts the ice-free deepwater port and its acreage on the west side of Newfoundland's Avalon peninsula. The port already markets itself as a storage and staging ground for monopiles - massive seabed foundations that hold up offshore wind turbines. The first monopiles, which can measure 120 metres long and weigh many tons depending on ocean depth, arrived last year and are laid out along what were the naval air station's runways.

Another business idea being explored at the port is a processing hub for rare earth metals, which are used in clean-energy technology such as wind turbines, fuel cells, rechargeable batteries and electric vehicles. Torrent Capital Ltd., the firm with the half-stake in Argentia Capital, has tapped the federal government for funding to get that business off the ground.

Pattern Energy, Argentia Capital

The ammonia project would be a coup for the port. Pattern Energy, one of the world's largest private developers of wind and solar projects, is contemplating a plant powered by a 45-turbine wind farm on port lands across from the dock. Pattern Energy is negotiating to sell ammonia, a hydrogen-nitrogen compound that is relatively easy to store and transport, to a customer in Germany starting in 2027.

A signatory to the Pattern Energy agreement is Argentia Capital. The venture is entitled to a royalty of 1% to 3.5% of the ammonia project's gross revenue and has the right to acquire a limited-partnership interest of as much as 12.5% in the project "or any other entities established for operating a renewable energy or green fuels production project at the Port of Argentia," according to regulatory filings by Halifax-based Torrent.

The Pattern Energy contract could be worth $7 million in royalties per year to Argentia Capital, according to HBB calculations. The amount is based on yearly production of 146,000 metric tonnes of green ammonia, which is created by mixing hydrogen obtained from water and nitrogen from the air; a US$1,000-per-tonne price for "green" ammonia, which is above the price for ammonia made using fossil fuels; and the recent U.S.-dollar exchange rate.

It's the green ammonia price that would likely be subsidized by the Canadian government. The eventual plan, when the technology is sufficiently advanced, is for ammonia produced at the port to be shipped to Germany and separated back into its components, with the hydrogen used as an energy source.

Not Just "Green"

Argentia Capital could participate financially in any business deal reached by the port, be it "green" or related to offshore petroleum production, mining or aquaculture. As a non-profit corporation, the port is required to reinvest any earnings.

"We're hosting the renewables industry and the offshore oil industry right next to each other," Newhook said. "Halifax might be able to welcome a new cargo, but because of the land we have, we can welcome new industries."

Revenue at the port company rose 40% in 2023 to $6.0 million from $4.3 million in 2022, and is up 61% from $3.7 million in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Expenses in 2023 rose 28% to $5.2 for a surplus of $790,000. Most of the revenue was generated from leasing property, with the rest coming from port fees and government funding.

Development has come gradually in the two decades since the federal government transferred the site to the entity that became Port of Argentia Inc. The port company, which is not a crown corporation, is overseen by an unpaid board and professional management team to "provide effective stewardship of the seaport and industrial property at Argentia to enhance the region’s economic vitality and quality of life." The port generates 10% to 15% of the tax revenue for Placentia, the host municipality, Newhook said.

The largest current cargo is seafood destined for one of Newfoundland & Labrador 90 or so processing plants, with the seafood industry being one of the province's biggest along with petroleum and mining. Industrial products ranging from nickel produced at a nearby refinery to cement to cars also pass through the port, which offers vacationers a 16-hour summer ferry route to Nova Scotia.

Significant Economic Impact

"Economic impacts from investments at the Port will be significant, not only for the Placentia area but for the entire province,” Ball said in a September 2022 press release announcing the creation of Argentia Capital.

The appointment in September 2020 of the port's current chief executive, Scott Penney, coincided with efforts to prepare Argentia for expansion and rebranding. Within a month of Penney's arrival, the port applied for title to 790 acres of harbour seabed that fronts the dock. That transfer, completed in 2022, solidified the port company's control over the site and ensured that development projects could be more easily undertaken.

Ball and Penney, who served as executive assistant to the leader of the official opposition in 2012-2013 when Ball led the provincial Liberals, are the two Argentia Capital directors appointed by the port. Carl Sheppard, the consultant, and Torrent CEO Wade Dawe, another Newfoundland native, are Torrent's appointees to Argentia Capital's board.

Sheppard said his work at Argentia dates to the 1990s, when he was involved in preparing an economic-development study for the port. A 2021 study by Sheppard's St. John's company, Strategic Concepts Inc., produced a clean-energy blueprint that would eventually lead to the creation of Argentia Capital.

The goal of the 2021 study was to explore how to generate interest in the port, Sheppard, who is the venture's interim chief executive, said in an interview. "The idea of Argentia Capital came after that."

In November 2021, Sheppard joined the board of Torrent. Sheppard and Dawe have a business relationship that goes back to at least 2017, when Sheppard served as a director of Dawe's Duckworth Capital Corp.

Ball said the idea for green energy at the port has been around since at least 2016: "We agreed with the idea and the port has been working on it for a number of years."

Century Global

Ball, who chairs Argentia Capital, has joined at least two other boards since stepping down as premier in February 2020. In June 2022, he was named a director and vice-chair of Century Global Commodities Corp., a Hong Kong-based company that has a Chinese food-distribution business and iron-ore assets in Labrador.

In announcing Ball's appointment, Century Global said Ball will in part "help oversee the Company through a significant stage of development" of its proposed $270 million Joyce Lake iron-ore site 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) northeast of Montreal. The open-pit project stalled in 2016 amid poor market conditions, and Century Global, has until the end of 2025 to complete regulatory submissions after receiving an extension in July 2022.

Last year, Ball was named to the board of Canadian Development Investment Corp. (CDEV), a crown agency that oversees the federal government's interests in the Hibernia oil field offshore Newfoundland and the budget-busting $34 billion Trans Mountain pipeline carrying Alberta oil to port in British Columbia.

Another asset that CDEV oversees is Canada Growth Fund Inc., a $15 billion federally funded pool established in 2022 to invest in green-energy projects and guarantee revenue streams to businesses that may not have sufficient financial incentives to invest without government backstops. Ball was appointed to CDEV's board on the recommendation of Freeland, the deputy prime minister, in her additional role as finance minister.

Incentives

Pattern Energy hopes to make use of the green-energy incentives available from the Canadian government, Frank Davis, managing director, green fuels, at Pattern Energy, said in emailed comments.

"Pattern Energy is working closely with the Canadian government on exploring various avenues of support for the project through established mechanisms, including the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund," Davis said. "Furthermore, Canada and Germany have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at structuring a joint vehicle of support for this new industry. Pattern expects to be seeking support under this MOU as well."

Ball told HBB he "will not be involved in deciding whether and to what extent Pattern Energy or any other future partner of the Port of Argentia could receive assistance from the Canada Growth Fund."

"CDEV has been around for over 40 years managing high value strategic assets on behalf of the Government of Canada," Ball said. "Board members are selected through a lengthy and intense process which has been established by government. I, like all others, have followed the same process."

The cost of the subsidies provided by Canada Growth Fund typically runs into the millions of dollars, and there are critiques of some of the choices made so far by Canada Growth Fund, and how the company decides terms of the price guarantees.

Pattern Energy also plans to take advantage of the Canadian government's proposed green-energy investment tax credits, which allow qualified investors to subtract defined amounts from their tax bills.

"These tax credits apply to a portion of the overall (capital expenditures) of the project," Davis said. "Different levels of investment tax credit will apply to different categories of capital equipment."

Sheppard and Ball said they're being paid as consultants for their Argentia Capital work. Ball said his compensation has come through an agreement that he has with the port's board.

"Like a number of professionals I provide consulting services to the Port of Argentia, Ball said. "It’s a fascinating place to be involved with and growing at a fast pace."

--HBB