When Charity Funds Mining: Flow-Through Shares and the Indigenous Consent Gap – Woodward & Company LLP
September 22, 2025
What if your charitable donation was helping fund mining exploration on Indigenous lands—without the knowledge or consent of the Nations impacted?
That is the reality behind Canada’s little-known charity flow-through (CFT) share scheme. While it offers wealthy Canadians and institutional donors enormous tax breaks for “gifting” mining shares to charities, the public dollars behind those incentives may also be underwriting resource exploration that ignores Indigenous rights and sovereignty.
A growing number of Indigenous governments are challenging this status quo. In Gitxaala v. British Columbia (Gitxaala), First Nations are taking the province to court for allowing mineral claims to be registered on their territories without notice or consent—highlighting the legal and ethical cracks in Canada’s mining regime. In this context, CFT may be fueling projects on Indigenous lands without consent, oversight, or consequence.
