Canada—Offshore Growth Strategy

DAI’s Sustainable Business Group (SBG) undertook extensive analysis of legal, regulatory, policy, and contractual documents to identify new opportunities to improve the policy framework for local benefits to drive greater local economic growth vis-à-vis employment and small firm participation in the energy supply chain. Two legal frameworks were compared for their ability to create opportunities to commit proponents of contracts to predictable quantitative outcomes. This comparison was done through rigorous legal analysis and used four case studies of the two frameworks in practice to determine their potential in accordance with a set of 12 key industry benefits provisions. SBG also compared the framework in question to that used in neighboring government agencies. Additionally, wider local content practices in the global upstream petroleum sector and the country’s mining sector were reviewed to identify additional types of quantitative benefits from the frameworks. 

SBG produced a final report to succinctly deliver the legal analysis and highlighted potential optimal strategies for the government agency. These took into consideration legal questions and key success factors for if the framework in question were to become the chosen legal framework for future offshore projects. SBG also delivered a workshop for staff that provided both foundational concepts and best practices regarding local content and explained the key insights from the report, meshing where provincial policy meets global industry practice.