THUNDER BAY — First Nations leaders in northern Ontario are vowing an “Idle No More 2.0” if the province passes Bill 5, legislation that would speed up development without clear rules on Indigenous consultation and accommodation.
“If and when this becomes law, say next week or after that, there will be fierce resistance from our side,” Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said on Thursday, representing the chiefs of 49 communities in the province’s far north. “I know my dear friend Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige has said the same thing.
“This is what we’re looking at: Idle No More 2.0.”
Debassige referenced the 2012 movement that asserted Indigenous rights and sovereignty across Canada in response to federal omnibus legislation in a statement Anishinabek Nation issued on Tuesday. She urged Premier Doug Ford to immediately withdraw the controversial Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, saying, “we caution the provincial government that should Bill 5 proceed in its current form, we will be idle no more.”
That statement followed two days of deputations that chiefs and grand chiefs across the province made to the Standing Committee on the Interior over the past week. All of those deputations called for the government to scrap the bill and start again with consultation, while deputations referenced the possibility of demonstrations or direct action if the bill passes.
First Nations argue the series of laws that Bill 5 amends, such as the Mining Act and the Endangered Species Act, comprise a legal regime on free, prior and informed consultation and accommodation. The bill proposes new “special economic zones” the minister can designate without size or impact limitation, that would exempt developers from following defined regulations and protocols on Indigenous engagement.
“They need to provide more details, procedures and protocols with this duty to consult,” said Nibinamik (Summer Beaver First Nation) Chief Michael Sugarhead. “When other development comes, such as mining engagement, that we’ve been having recently, our rights aren’t really considered.”
Nibinamik is located about 100 kilometres west of the 5,000-square-kilometre Ring of Fire mineral deposit, which Ford has said he will name as the first special economic zone. Twenty years after prospectors found the deposit, Sugarhead said Ontario still refuses to recognize nearby First Nations as full partners and he’s concerned this legislation will deeply impact the land while leaving future generations in poverty.“How is this going to help our community? We live in third-world conditions and it’s like that because of the government,” he said.
Sugarhead said the residual effects of this are poor health, poor education, and poor standards of living. “Reconciliation is imperative in this case, to have that meaningful partnership and participation in this type of development. If it’s not there, I don’t think that the people of the land will give their free, prior and informed consent.”
Facing mounting opposition, Progressive Conservative committee members introduced 23 amendments to Bill 5 on Wednesday, including one that made explicit the government’s commitment to abide by its constitutional responsibility to consult and “affirmation of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.”
Nibinamik’s lawyer, Zachary Davis, accused the Doug Ford Conservatives of committing “lip service” to Indigenous rights, insisting the amendment is legally empty.
“The government’s just admitting what is already true,” Davis said. “These are constitutional obligations. It provides no certainty.”
Sol Mamakwa, Kiiwetinoong NDP MPP and the only First Nations member of the Legislature, called the PC’s amendments “meaningless, unserious, and worse than useless,” while he accused the government of “placing itself above and beyond the law.”
Mamakwa introduced two separate motions in committee that would have seen hearings on Bill 5 take place in Thunder Bay and other parts of northern Ontario. PC committee members defeated them both.
Indigenous minister Greg Rickford said during question period on Wednesday that consultation with First Nations will begin after the bill is passed. To that end, his government will introduce, “Indigenous-led economic zones.” Rickford said in a statement to Ricochet Media that his office intends, “to work throughout the summer in consultation with Indigenous partners to develop regulations to create new Indigenous-led economic zones as part of Bill 5. This amendment creating a new category of zone is at the request of some First Nations who, like us, want to build projects that will unlock economic prosperity for generations.”
But Fiddler says Ontario has offered no direction or definition of what such a zone designation would entail.
“The impression we’re getting is that they’re just making things up on the fly,” Fiddler said. “I think it’s too late in the process to try to fix this bill with any kind of amendments, including creating Indigenous-led economic zones. We don’t even know what that means.”
The Mushkegowuk Council is meeting in Sault Ste. Marie to discuss the bill on Thursday, including representatives of Moose Cree First Nation.
On April 9, Moose Cree Chief Peter Wesley stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ontario energy minister Stephen Lecce to announce the construction of two new hydroelectric facilities that will generate 430 megawatts in the shared traditional territory with Taykwa Tagamou Nation. By the end of May, Ontario introduced Bill 5. Wesley couldn’t believe it.
“We were involved from the very initial stages of the project and to have minister Lecce acknowledge that, wow, this is the groundwork of how it should be,” he said. “What happened? To have Bill 5 come out, and ‘we’ll think about adding consultation as an afterthought?’ It’s not going to work. A few weeks ago, we thought we were on the right path. I don’t know if that’s there anymore.”
Moose Cree has been expressing disapproval of a prospective niobium mine 25 kilometres up the North French River since 2019. Wesley says he has voiced his community’s opposition to the project in written letters to both Ford and Rickford, but has received no response.Moose Cree members took the train to demonstrate in Ottawa during the 2012 Idle No More movement. Wesley believes that if Bill 5 passes, his community will be prepared to stand up once more.“There might be a lot of civil unrest by First Nations again,” he said. “We have some very outspoken members who will not stand for the North French to be touched – and they’ve made their views pretty clear.”
Ricochet / Local Journalism Initiative
