The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Chief Sonny Gagnon of Aroland First Nation visited Sudbury on Thursday to begin what he says will be a process of educating other First Nations about developments related to the Ring of Fire and his community’s involvement in them.
Gagnon met with leaders from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek or Whitefish Lake First Nation, but would not say what was discussed at the two-hour session.
“There are a lot of dark areas where we have to enlighten ourselves,” the chief said Friday in a telephone interview from northwestern Ontario. “I think they know what happened in the past with Sudbury,” he said of the First Nation located 20 kilometres west of the city.
Gagnon says his community is not anti-development, but he doesn’t like the way the decision was made on the location of the ferrochrome smelter that Cliffs Natural Resources plans to build near Capreol.
The chief is “ticked off ” about the fact Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci, who is Sudbury’s Liberal MPP, did not consult with his community before the decision about the smelter was announced last Wednesday.
“I knew the smelter was going to your direction, I anticipated that,” said the chief.
What frustrates him and his members is they never had the opportunity to present their plan for how the smelter could be located in their area to either Bartolucci or Cliffs.
Friday, Gagnon led a demonstration whose purpose was to tell “the world … that we are here. We’re here. That we will be here and we’ll forever be here.”
Gagnon said he has concerns about Ring of Fire development and the environment, as well as violations of constitutionally protected treaty rights.
Bartolucci insisted at a news conference earlier Friday that his government takes very seriously its duty to consult with First Nations affected by development of the Ring of Fire chromite deposits, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
He said several First Nations provided him with a framework focusing on areas of concern to them.
“We’re committed to that because it’s important,” Bartolucci said after announcing a $1-million allocation to Wahnapitae First Nation for a $4.5- million multi-purpose facility. The provincial money came from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.
The plan Gagnon and his members would have presented to the province and Cliffs included an electricity grid to the Ring of Fire that communities in the area could have connected with.
See FIRST NATION — A4 But the announcement came about the smelter location “and we weren’t even listened to,” said Gagnon.
Bartolucci said last week it was Cliffs that made the decision where to locate the ferrochrome smelter. He also said the project would generate 1,200 jobs for Northern Ontario, including hundreds at the mine site and in construction of a transportation corridor.
But Gagnon says those are “pick and shovel jobs,” not the 450 high-paying jobs that will come with the $1.8-billion smelter to be built near Capreol.
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