Canada’s CDPQ Inks Another Alternative Energy Deal

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the public pension fund of Québec, has launched a financial and strategic partnership with the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake to jointly invest in renewable energy infrastructure projects. According to the Canadian pension fund, the venture will also seek to facilitate Canadian Indigenous communities’ access to financing.

Under the joint venture, the organizations plan to establish partnerships based on an alignment of interests, as well as on the “social acceptability of projects.” They are also looking to provide Indigenous communities with the technical capabilities necessary for negotiating complex agreements and analyzing the financial conditions of large-scale projects. According to the CDPQ, the two will also conduct “rigorous monitoring” to help ensure a “sustainable and inclusive” development approach.

“For over a century, major energy infrastructure projects have impacted the rights and lands of Indigenous peoples. We believe that now is the time for our communities to participate in the energy transition by owning and benefiting from energy infrastructure on our ancestral lands,” said Cody Diabo, grand chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, in a statement.

Diabo added that the partnership intends to provide “First Nations and Inuit communities with the economic opportunity to maximize their participation in large-scale energy infrastructure on their lands and benefit from the revenues generated.”

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The venture is the latest alternative investment deal the CDPQ has signed over the past several months. Among other investments, the pension fund announced in October 2024 that it will partner with Nuveen Green Capital to launch a C$830 million ($583 million) financing program for sustainable U.S. commercial real estate.

CDPQ also announced, in late September 2024, that it is acquiring a 25% stake in First Hydro, which operates electricity generation and storage facilities in the U.K. Earlier that month, the pension fund announced it invested C$575 million alongside capital network Fonds de solidarité FTQ in Énergir, a Québec-based energy provider. The investment is intended to support the provider’s efforts to decarbonizing its energy production. Last August, a consortium of Canadian investors that includes CDPQ said it will allocate C$145 million to the MKB Partners Fund III, which makes energy transition investments in the industrial, clean energy and mobility sectors.