Advisory to First Nations · Calgary, Alberta
From idea to shovel-ready, with the capacity to run it.
Wakiya Solutions is an independent advisor to First Nations. We take a project from idea to the point where it can proceed: shovel-ready for a capital program, or ready to start for a grant that funds the work itself. We leave behind the people, tools and knowledge to run it. Sovereignty is the point. Everything else is how we get there.
Step 1 of 5
Assess
Is this real, and is it worth doing? You receive a site and need assessment, an options review, an order-of-magnitude cost, and an honest answer when the answer is no.
Read the five stepsChoose a step on the diagram to see what it covers.
How we work
One accountable process. Five steps, in order, on every engagement.
The subject changes; the method does not. One contract covers the whole chain, so the Nation is not reconciling the assumptions of four advisors. Not every funder wants a shovel-ready project: some pay for the planning, a program or the training itself, and the steps are sized to what the funder asks for. At every step, what the Nation receives and the decision it supports.
Assess
Is this real, and is it worth doing?
- You receive
- Site and need assessment, options review, order-of-magnitude cost, and an honest answer when the answer is no.
- Decision it supports
- Whether to pursue the project at all.
Structure
What has to exist for the Nation to own it?
- You receive
- The entity, the licence, the governance and the agreements, whatever has to exist before the Nation can hold it.
- Decision it supports
- Which body owns it, and on what terms.
Model
What does it cost, what does it earn, what breaks it?
- You receive
- Performance modelling, financial and economic analysis, sensitivities, and a stated basis and confidence on every number.
- Decision it supports
- Whether the case holds under the scenarios that matter.
Fund
Where does the money come from, and does it survive an audit?
- You receive
- Program fit and strategy, including funders that pay for planning, programs or training rather than construction. Grant writing is our own work, not a referral. Eligible-cost discipline and reporting in the funder's format.
- Decision it supports
- How the project is financed and accounted for.
Carry
Who keeps it moving, and who runs it after?
- You receive
- Permitting and environmental support, utility and regulator engagement, community communication, project management.
- Decision it supports
- What remains before the project can proceed.
Capacity is not step six
It runs through all five. A Nation person is named to each step and works it alongside us, so that by the end the knowledge is in the community rather than in our files.
- Education and training. What the named people need to hold the work, including specialist courses from a third party where that is the honest answer.
- Tools. The models, spreadsheets, data, drawings and licences, handed over in a form that can still be used and edited after we leave.
- Mentorship. Named people, through the project, not a handover session at the end.
- Unrestricted reuse. The Nation can use, adapt and republish everything we produce for future projects and funding applications, without asking us.
Who does what
Wakiya Solutions holds the five steps and stays accountable for the whole of them. Specialists are brought in as a project needs them, from people we trust, and coordinated by us: engineering, environmental, geotechnical, legal, and equipment from suppliers. The Nation gets one point of accountability rather than a list of contractors, and it always knows which parts were done by whom.
What we work on
What matters to the community.
Wakiya Solutions works with First Nations on what matters to their communities. We plan it, cost it, find the funding, and build the capacity in the Nation to run it. The subject is the Nation's call; the method is ours.
What the work does
Whatever is built, it does at least one of four things. Which one it is, is the Nation's call, not ours. Work to date has included power generation and storage, community facilities, active transportation and food production.
Who is reading this
You are deciding something. Here is what we put in front of you.
Chief and Council, the administration, an EcDev board and a funder do not need the same page. Here is what each one gets.
Chief and Council
What you are deciding
Whether to commit the Nation's name, land and matching funds to this.
What we put in front of you
One recommendation, the two options rejected and why, the decision needed and the date it is needed by. Never more than one page before the appendix.
CAO or finance
What you are deciding
Whether the numbers hold and whether the claims will survive the funder.
What we put in front of you
Itemised figures, assumptions stated, sensitivities shown, fiscal-year alignment explicit, every number traceable to a source. Quarterly reporting in the funder's format, with anything still outstanding named.
EcDev or development corporation
What you are deciding
Whether this stands up as a business the corporation can run and defend to its board.
What we put in front of you
A commercial case in its own right: revenue, operating cost, staffing, risk. Not a community-benefit case with a budget attached. Explicit about which decisions sit with the board and which with Council.
Community members
What you are deciding
Whether to support this at a meeting, and whether to trust who is doing it.
What we put in front of you
Plain language, scale in something you can picture, what happens next, who to ask, and what has not been decided yet. No acronym without its plain meaning.
Funder
What you are deciding
Whether the claimed costs are eligible and the reporting is defensible.
What we put in front of you
Reporting in your format and cycle, costs tied to eligible activities, variances explained with cause and effect, nothing rounded away. Section headings that mirror the agreement's own.
Utility or regulator
What you are deciding
Whether this application is complete enough to be worth your technical review time.
What we put in front of you
Complete technical submissions, correct terminology, a realistic schedule, no advocacy language. Engineering by a licensed firm, coordinated by us and identified as theirs.
How the engagement is governed
Clear responsibilities. No hidden assumptions.
A committee spending public money should be able to see how the work is structured, not take it on trust.
Traceable numbers
Every number carries a range, a date and a source. Assumptions are stated where the figure is, not in an appendix.
Reporting you can hand over
Quarterly progress reports in the funder's own format, variances explained by cause and effect, and anything we are still waiting on from the Nation named rather than hidden.
Clear responsibility
Wakiya Solutions holds the whole and coordinates the specialists. Work that needs somebody else's licence is done by them and identified as theirs.
Honest limits
A study is professional judgment on the information available at the time. Approval, funding and savings are never guaranteed, and the agreement says so.
What we will not claim
The fastest way to keep this honest is a list of things we are not.
- Not the decision-maker.Wakiya Solutions recommends. Council decides. Nothing we publish should read as if the choice has been made for them.
- Not a guarantor of outcomes.A feasibility study is professional judgment on the information available at the time, not a promise of approval, funding, savings or any economic result.
- Not the specialist.Engineers, environmental consultants, geotechnical drillers and legal counsel are brought in as a project needs them and coordinated by us.
- Not a vendor.No product line, no inventory, no manufacturer's target to hit. Equipment is sourced through trusted, likeminded suppliers on the Nation's behalf.
- Not a spokesperson.Wakiya Solutions does not speak for a Nation, for a community, or for Indigenous peoples generally. Not in a report, not at a conference, not online.
- Not a repository of traditional knowledge.Anything shared in confidence stays confidential with no expiry, and is never reused as a case study, a methodology or a credential.
Who you deal with
One person accountable from the first conversation until the project can proceed.
Geordie MacPherson, Consultant
I lead every Wakiya Solutions engagement, bring in the specialists a project needs, and stay accountable for the whole of it.
My job is to give the Nation a clear view of the options, the costs, the risks and the decision ahead, without taking the decision away from Council.
The work should leave the Nation with more than a report: tools you can still edit, people who worked alongside the project from the start, and the right to reuse everything for the next one.
Wakiya Solutions Ltd. is a corporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act with its registered office in Calgary, Alberta. Confidentiality has no expiry: no client name, contract value or community detail appears anywhere public without prior written consent, and no AI tool ever sees a client's confidential material.
Contact
Tell us about your project.
Bring us the idea, the study, or the funded project that needs carrying. An email is enough to start.
Office
Your email reaches the consultant who would lead the work, not an intake desk. First conversations are usually 30 minutes, by phone or video, at no charge and with no obligation. We come to the community when the work calls for it: a site assessment, a Council presentation, a community meeting.