LONDON ONT — Northern Superior Regional Chief Melvin Hardy highlighted the importance of protecting the land for future generations during his opening remarks at the Anishinabek Nation’s Grand Council Assembly on June 3 in London.
“We are gathered here today with the shared purpose to protect our lands, our waters and our inherent rights,” Hardy says on the first day of the three-day assembly at the Four Points by Sheraton.
“For centuries the Anishinabek Nation has stood firm in its responsibility to be caretakers of Mother Earth, ensuring balance, sustainability and well-being of our future generations, and this duty has never been more critical today. We face mounting challenges, environmental threats, resource extraction pressures, policies that fail to recognize the depth of our connection to the land, water and environment, but today we reaffirm our commitment to advocacy, to leadership and to preservation of Mother Earth, that who sustains us.”
Hardy also raised concerns about the risks of aerial spraying across the Anishinabek Nation territories.
“Glyphosate is a widely used herbicide that is contaminating our food, forests and water — this is simply not an environmental issue, it is matter of sovereignty of the right to protect the lands and waters that have sustained us from time immemorial,” Hardy says. “The federal reassessment of glyphosate must include the voices of our First Nation communities. Our waters, sacred and life-giving, are at risk, the personhood of water initiative seeks to recognize the inherent rights of our lakes and rivers and to give them legal standing as living entities.”
Lake Huron Regional Chief Scott McLeod highlighted concerns about the provincial government’s Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, during his opening remarks.
“I’ve been asked to bring a couple of messages this morning on behalf of (Kiiwetinoong MPP) Sol Mamakwa,” McLeod says. “Sol called me and he was very emotional — Sol’s been carrying a lot of weight on his shoulders and he wanted me to send his thanks for all the people that stood behind him and supported his fight in their government.”
McLeod says Mamakwa wanted to let people know that sometimes it’s very lonely being a government official and a Nishnawbe citizen.
“It was very important to him personally to see all the support that we gave him, so I think it’s important to know that because as political leaders here in this circle, we feel strength because we’re surrounded by our own,” McLeod says. “But some of our leaders, like Sol, are not surrounded and they’re in a foreign house that has rules that contradict ours. As you heard, he was asked to leave the chambers yesterday for speaking the truth.”
McLeod says what the provincial government officials didn’t know when they told him to withdraw his comments was that Mamakwa was speaking with an eagle feather when he made his comments.
“The thing they don’t understand is that Sol was speaking with an eagle feather in his hand and by our protocol and our rules, Sol cannot speak anything but the truth,” McLeod says. “So he stood up not only for us, he stood up for our protocol, for our beliefs, for our way of doing things — as a result, they asked him to leave the house.”
