Strategic planning for companies in the three territories

Logistics drive the operating plan

In the territories, the timeline is often the hardest part of the plan to get right. Long, very cold winters, with heating needed for most of the year, and, if your communities depend on seasonal road, air or sea access, projects and supply lines can take longer than a southern template would assume.

We build three adjustments into northern operating plans:

1. Longer lead times for equipment, supplies and hires, set from your own past experience.
2. Seasonal windows for work that depends on road, air or sea access.
3. Cash reserves sized for the gap between paying for inputs and getting paid for the work.

The annual operating plan service turns these into monthly numbers.

Hiring in small labour pools

A northern plan's hiring line deserves more scrutiny than any other. When a community has few people with the skills you need, each vacancy can take months, and the plan's revenue depends on it.

A simple test: if the plan needs four new staff next year and the typical time to fill a role is five months, the last hire may not start until late in the year. Suppose each person produces $15,000 of monthly revenue once trained. Two hires arriving four months late cost about $120,000 of revenue that year. The plan should show that gap and decide whether to recruit earlier, use rotational staff or set a lower target. We model this in scenario planning.

Nunavut: language as an operating cost

In Nunavut, Inuktut is part of doing business with the public. Under the Inuit Language Protection Act, a private business's signs, posters and advertising must show Inuktut no less prominently than any other language, and customers must be able to get service in Inuktut. Providers of essential services carry extra duties, and compliance is overseen by the Languages Commissioner.

We do not interpret those duties for you. In the plan we treat them as a standing operating cost with an owner: translation, bilingual staff or interpretation, and updated materials whenever the company launches something new. A company entering Nunavut from elsewhere should cost this before committing.

Territorial offices in the timeline

Each territory has its own registry and workplace compensation body. The plan should list the step, the owner and the date; your lawyer and accountant advise on the requirements.

• Yukon: corporate filings through the Yukon Corporate Online Registry, and staff coverage through the Yukon Workers' Safety and Compensation Board.
• Northwest Territories: corporate registries within the Department of Justice, and the WSCC, which serves both NWT and Nunavut.
• Nunavut: corporate filings through Nunavut Legal Registries.

Reviews across long distances

Northern leadership teams are often split across communities hours apart by air. We usually recommend one in-person offsite a year and three online quarterly strategy reviews with a short pack and a decision log.

The quarterly review guide explains the agenda.

A northern scenario: the late season

The scenario most northern plans need is a delayed supply or access season. If materials or equipment arrive six weeks late, work planned for the warm months gets compressed or pushed into winter.

Take a company planning $3 million of revenue, with $1.2 million of it scheduled in the summer access window. A six-week delay could shift a third of that work, about $400,000, into the following year. The plan should state which contracts get priority, whether overtime or extra crews make sense, and how cash is covered while the revenue waits. Agreeing on this in the spring is far easier than in August.

Fees and tax

Fees follow our published consulting rates in Canadian dollars. As of October 2026, clients in all three territories add 5% GST, using the Canada Revenue Agency rate tool as reference. To start, call, text or email; a short text to (604) 632-4959 is welcome.