https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/
Elizabeth Atlookan says she’s disillusioned with the state of negotiations with Ontario
The annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention wraps up in Toronto Wednesday, but one First Nations leader says she gave it a pass this year.
Eabametoong chief Elizabeth Atlookan typically attended the event because it was a forum for meetings between Matawa chiefs and government officials, sometimes regarding the Ring of Fire, she said in a release posted March 1 on the community’s web site.
But the Progressive Conservative government of Doug Ford has failed to respond to repeated requests to continue meeting with the chiefs since coming to power in June of last year, she said.
“I am somewhat disillusioned by the outcome of events with our negotiations with Ontario,” Atlookan told CBC, “so I chose not to go.”
“You know there’s a lot of talk about the Ring of Fire,” she added, “and it’s no secret the premier has said he’s going to bulldoze his way to the Ring of Fire, so when that’s being said, and you’re, you know, excluded from any decision making … obviously that’s going to ring a lot of bells.
The nine Matawa chiefs wrote to Ford in July asking to continue regional Ring of Fire discussions, Atlookan wrote in her release.
For the rest of this article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/eabametoong-chief-skips-pdac-1.5044249