Skip to content

More Aboriginal insight needed in development: university report

Effective Aboriginal engagement and participation in regional planning is the lynchpin to making progress on mineral development in northwestern Ontario.
DSC_4896_Cropped
Pete Hollings, Lakehead University.

Effective Aboriginal engagement and participation in regional planning is the lynchpin to making progress on mineral development in northwestern Ontario.

Lakehead University’s Centre for Excellence for Sustainable Mining and Exploration (CESME) released its first policy paper this spring, calling for greater First Nations involvement in shaping regional decision-making and consultation processes, environmental protection, training programs, and in re-examining Ontario’s tax regime.

The 32-page report concluded that while there are “widely divergent” viewpoints from industry, First Nations, strategists, consultants, watchdog groups and policy wonks on how to promote sustainable mining development, there’s plenty of common ground to be found.

The report’s bottom line, said CESME director Pete Hollings, is that government needs to “step up and take a leadership role” with a development strategy to facilitate mining development.

The document is a compilation of the group discussion and conclusions drawn from CESME’s inaugural conference, the Role of Government Policy in Sustainable Mining Development, held in Thunder Bay in December 2013.

Released at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual convention in March, the paper has been distributed to politicians, government bureaucrats and mining companies.

Hollings said Queen’s Park has promised a billion dollars for infrastructure to reach the stranded deposits, but is falling down in providing clarity in the environmental and permitting processes.

A provincial Ring of Fire development corporation has been created, but in producing tangible results “that seems to be going nowhere fast” which only adds to a sense of widespread frustration felt in the North.

The report said much skepticism exists about how much economic potential exists in the Ring of Fire, but all stakeholders agree that “development is inevitable.”

The dialogue revolves around how to strike a balance between company profits and the needs of First Nation. Resource revenue sharing would ensure Aboriginal communities would not be excluded from the benefits of mining.

But progress on that front is moving slowly, said Hollings.

It only contributes to a landscape of uncertainty that doesn’t promote Ontario as a mining-friendly province.

“It’s hard (to attract investment) into the Ring of Fire without some clear idea of when you might see a return,” said Hollings. “And that return requires the permitting process to look like it’s moving forward and the infrastructure question to be addressed.

“Part of the problem is that the communities don’t trust the (mining) companies. We had a conversation with one of the First Nation communities that received some (technical) data…and they didn’t trust it because the company had paid for it.”

Of course, Hollings said, accredited commercial labs are not going to rig the results for the benefit of their clients, but that doesn’t change their suspicions.

Hollings felt underwhelmed by Ottawa’s and Queen’s Park’s joint announcement at PDAC to provide funding to the First
Nations for an east-west road corridor study into the James Bay lowlands.

“There’s a profound sense of mistrust and I think that’s why the First Nations have been given $785,000 to do their own environmental assessment on the impact of the road. “

Established in 2013, CESME brands itself as an honest broker to both industry and First Nations.

Hollings finds the biggest environmental concern is the contamination of groundwater, particularly whether the effluent from chromite mining would be carcinogenic. Studying the cumulative impact of mining is one area Lakehead can contribute through its analytical labs.

“We don’t have a vested interest from a mining or First Nation point of view,” said Hollings. “We can provide both sides with honest impartial advice.”

“We’re constantly talking with Matawa (First Nations) on how we can get involved and help them develop those baseline studies to give them confidence, and hopefully they trust us as a university.

“As the university of the North, we think we have a role to play in addressing these questions. We probably have a research connection with every one of these communities through some department in the faculty.”

An estimated 11 per cent of Lakehead’s student population is self-declared First Nation, one of the highest percentages in Canada.

The challenge, Hollings said, is that most of these students are enrolled in social work, not engineering or the sciences. It often puts First Nations at a disadvantage in engaging with the miners as equals when trying to interpret a 5,000-page environmental assessment report paid for by industry.

Hollings said the ultimate goal for the institute is to graduate a generation of Aboriginals with the ability to make educated decisions on development in their homelands instead of deferring to outside voices.

“I will deem CESME a success when we are turning out professional engineers, geoscientists, environmental scientists who can go back to their communities and be the people who are reviewing these reports.”

For more information, visit cesme.lakeheadu.ca.