In April 2025, the Premiers of Manitoba and Nunavut signed a joint declaration to create a strategic energy and economic corridor between the two jurisdictions. Manitoba repatriated expiring hydro export contracts to the US and carved out 50 megawatts specifically for the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link. As Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin, CEO of Nukik Corporation, explains in this episode: until that moment, the project had a concept but no product to flow through the transmission line. That declaration changed everything.

In Part 2 of this two-episode conversation, Anne-Raphaëlle takes Mark Magnacca and Rob Brant inside the project itself - its full specification, its commercial architecture, and the one remaining obstacle between concept and construction.

The Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link is a 1,200-kilometre dual-use transmission and fibre optic asset running from Churchill in northern Manitoba to five of the Kivalliq region's seven communities.

Its anchor customer is Agnico Eagle Mines which Anne-Raphaelle describes as the largest Canadian gold miner and the second-largest gold miner in the world with two operating mines in the region for close to 20 years. Mining represents 75% of Nunavut's GDP. That anchor customer's long-term energy requirements are the bankable revenue that makes private capital participation viable.

In this second episode, Mark Magnacca, Rob Brant and Anne-Raphaëlle cover:

◦ Why the April 2025 joint declaration was the project's defining commercial turning point, triggering MISO certification, the transmission service request to Manitoba Hydro, and commercial agreements with Qulliq Energy Corporation.

◦ The capital structure: Canada Infrastructure Bank leading the financial workstream, senior debt market sounding currently under way, and why the federal backstop is the piece that has not yet moved.

◦ The chicken-and-egg financing dynamic and why the federal government is a key enabler.

◦ The Greenland benchmark: no engineering reason separates what Greenland has built from what Nunavut could achieve, the gap is political.

◦ The defence and Arctic sovereignty dimension, and what Canada's growing national defence budget means for projects of this kind.

Commercial close is targeted for 2026 or early 2027. The financial investment decision follows in 2028, with construction starting by the end of that year.

Nunavut is 20% of Canada's landmass. It has no roads, no transmission lines and no physical connection to the rest of the nation. Every watt of electricity powering its homes, hospitals, schools and two major gold mines runs on diesel and almost all of that diesel is imported from foreign countries. Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin, CEO of Nukik Corporation, is working to change that.

In this episode of Drumbeats, Anne-Raphaëlle explains the scope of the challenge, the commercial architecture of the solution, and why she believes Canada's Arctic represents one of the most compelling regulated infrastructure opportunities available to institutional investors today.

Nukik Corporation was established in 2021 by the Kivalliq Inuit Association, making it 100% Inuit-owned. Its flagship project - the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Linkis a $3 billion, 1,000-kilometre transmission line that would connect the Kivalliq region's communities, government and mining operations to the continental grid for the first time. Anne-Raphaëlle joined as CEO in 2022, bringing a career spanning environmental law, natural resources management and over a decade in the hydropower sector across Canada and West Africa.

In this first part of a two-episode conversation, Mark Magnacca, Rob Brant and Anne-Raphaëlle cover:

• Why Nunavut's 25 communities were settled artificially during Canada's Arctic colonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, and how that history shapes the infrastructure deficit today
• The energy sovereignty risk: 138 million litres of foreign diesel imported annually, with telecommunications dependent on non-Canadian Starlink technology
• Nukik's landmark MISO certification making it the first and only Arctic electricity developer accredited by a US regional transmission organisation and what that milestone means for project bankability
• Mark Carney's Major Projects Office and why Nukik meets all five national interest criteria, yet commercial close remains contingent on federal commitment
• Why Inuit communities are pushing Nukik to build faster, and why that represents a rare and valuable social license for infrastructure investors

For UK and continental European institutional investors, the strategic parallels are direct: regulated transmission infrastructure, sovereign-backed energy security imperatives, and anchor customers in the form of major mining operations with long-term energy contracts. The project is commercially advanced. The question, as Anne-Raphaëlle puts it plainly, is who blinks first.

For institutional investors, infrastructure fund managers, and senior advisors evaluating Canadian project opportunities, the question is no longer whether Indigenous equity participation matters - it is how the financing actually works, and what the federal government is doing to accelerate it. This episode answers both questions directly.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Jonathan Davey, Managing Director of Indigenous and Government Advisory at Scotiabank's Global Banking and Markets division, we move from the biographical to the operational. Jonathan is Haudenosaunee and a member of the Lower Cayuga Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River. He brings a decade of Indigenous law practice, five years building Scotiabank's Indigenous financial services group, and a year in the office of Scotiabank's President and CEO to a conversation that covers the full mechanics of Indigenous project finance in Canada today.

In Part 2, Jonathan covers:

• Section 89 of the Indian Act - why this single provision has historically been the greatest barrier to capital access for Indigenous communities, and the leasehold financing structures and investment vehicles practitioners use to navigate it
• Concessionary capital - what it is, where it comes from, and how forthcoming amendments to the First Nations Fiscal Management Act will allow the First Nations Finance Authority to provide low-cost capital directly to Indigenous special purpose vehicles for the first time
• Canada's $10 billion Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation - how federal and provincial loan guarantee programmes are bringing institutional lender risk weights close to zero on qualifying transactions, and what that means for the cost of capital on major projects
• The Build Canada Act and Major Projects Office - why every project of national interest now requires Indigenous participation, what the federal permit designation programme means for project timelines, and why Jonathan describes the current moment as a massive sea change
• The investment case for partnering with Indigenous groups - beyond the financial incentives, why Jonathan argues that Indigenous business acumen, stewardship, and traditional knowledge make these partnerships operationally compelling, not just politically necessary
• What has genuinely changed in Canada - a direct answer to the question sceptical international investors are asking, from someone who has watched the shift from inside one of Canada's largest banks

The key message for UK and European investors: the structures, programmes, and federal commitment that make Indigenous equity participation in major Canadian projects financially compelling are live now. The practitioners exist, the capital is available, and the deal flow in Jonathan's own words is unlike anything he has seen before.