The Anishinabek Nation is alarmed that nation-to-nation consultation and engagement will be tossed aside in favour of the province unilaterally expediting major development projects on First Nation lands through last month’s introduction of the Ford government’s Bill 5.
The organization, representing 39 member First Nations in Ontario, is calling on Premier Doug Ford and the province to halt advancement of the bill and start an engagement in “meaningful consultation, consent, and accommodation.”
In a May 13 news release, the Anishinabek Nation calls the government’s current consultation process a “complete failure.” It views Bill 5 as a move by the Ontario government to override established and constitutionally protected treaty obligations and bypass the inherent rights of Indigenous people without their consent.
This legislation, they insist, impacts Anishinabek territories, rights and resources.
And as far as Anishinabek leadership are concerned, Aboriginal and treaty rights are protected in the Constitution, and Indigenous people never ceded title and control of their land, water and its resources to a colonial entity, such as the Ontario government, said the group in the release.
“Our inherent jurisdiction flows from our existing occupation, governance structures, and natural laws given to us by the Creator, long before Canada’s founding or any assertion of Crown sovereignty,” said Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige in a statement.
They said the intent of the Robinson-Huron, Robinson-Superior, and other treaties, to the Anishinabek people, was an agreement to “share the land with settlers under specific conditions, not to extinguish their rights or allow the province to act unilaterally.”
Disregarding this nation-to-nation relationship between the Anishinabek people and the Crown, the group says, serves to undermine the treaties “as living agreements built on mutual recognition and respect” and “erodes the legitimacy of this government and its legislative processes. It could lead to conflict, the leaders said.
Bill 5, which is part of the Ford government’s Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, is legislation that proposes to amend many existing laws and create new ones, such as a Special Economic Zones Act. This act would empower the province to create and designate “special economic zones” where projects, such as development in the Ring of Fire, would be exempt from provincial laws or regulations in an attempt to fast-track development of mining and major infrastructure projects.
The bill was introduced and passed first reading at Queen’s Park on April 17. It’s at second reading stage and was referred to the Standing Committee on the Interior.
The list of opponents, in the form of Indigenous and environmental groups, demanding that these zones be abandoned, is steadily growing.
Creating “special economic zones” to expedite economic development in Ontario are viewed by Anishinabek leadership as threatening environmental and species protection and overrides First Nation inherent and treaty rights.
“To allow lands of economic value that have been cited for development to be exempt from protective checks and balances, such as archaeological assessments and wildlife and ecosystem protections as proposed in this bill will cost First Nations and Ontarians profoundly, exposing and setting back species at risk protection and leading to the destruction of First Nation burial sites and artifacts,” said Debassige.
Debassige said the leadership can’t support the risk to the environment and the “erasure of the historical existence of First Nations on our treaty lands.”
