The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation Chief Donny Morris says his community needs time to ponder the province’s move to make a huge tract of land north of the reserve off-limits to mining.
“For something of this size, it’s an historical event,” Morris said Monday from Big Trout Lake, a fly-in community of 1,300 Oji-Cree located 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
In a surprise announcement Sunday, Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci excluded from mining 23,000 square kilometres of KI traditional territory “to give clarity to the province’s mineral exploration industry and avoid future disagreements over the land in question.”
In 2009, the Ontario government paid Toronto-based exploration company Platinex $5 million, plus options for future royalties, when the company agreed to stop exploring south of the KI community.
Morris said the 23,000-square-kilometre tract — about four times the size of Prince Edward Island and a known caribou migration route — has been the subject of ongoing discussions between the band and the province since 2001.
Morris said he was mystified that Bartolucci didn’t give any notice about Sunday’s announcement.
“We don’t do business on Sunday,” Morris said.
Adrian Kupesic, a spokesman for Bartolucci’s office, said the ministry had attempted to contact Morris and the band to tell them that an announcement was imminent.
Morris noted the tract doesn’t include the Crown land area around a former gold mine being explored by Toronto-based Gods Lake Resources.
The boundaries of the tract need to hammered out, said Morris.
“So we challenge (Bartolucci) to come to our community and sit down with us to discuss the boundaries.”
Ontario Prospectors Association executive director Garry Clark said Sunday’s announcement was still sinking in.
“It is a bit worrisome because it’s such a huge area,” Clark said Monday. “Isn’t that five per cent of the Far North?”
Though the land being set aside is huge, Morris said he doubted the decision by the province will open the door to similar requests by other remote First Nations.
“Probably not,” said Morris. “We are the ones that are going this route.”
Sunday’s decision doesn’t mean that KI will never entertain allowing mining to take place in the set-aside area, Morris added.
Kupesic said requests from First Nations are considered “on a case-by-case basis.”
In a news release, the province noted that relationships between First Nations and exploration companies have improved over the past decade.
“Since 1999, in Ontario, First Nations and industry have signed over 90 mineral development benefit agreements,” the release said.