Simultaneous press conferences outlined the promise of, and frustration with, Ontario’s mining boom
Four subway stops away from each other, three First Nations highlighted two very different experiences. At Queen’s Park Tuesday morning, Chief of Cat Lake First Nation Russell Wesley held a press conference to draw attention to an injunction his community has secured to prevent the commencement of road construction for a First Mining Gold project in its territory.
The community has initiated an Anishinaabe-led impact assessment on the project, which it expects will take a year, but the government wouldn’t wait and authorized the mining company to construct the road. Cat Lake First Nation won a temporary injunction to halt the project while its case alleging the government failed in its duty to consult the First Nation can be heard.
It’s not that the community is against mining, Wesley said. The community is supportive of other projects — but this one will take time to consider because it would drain a trout-rich lake in the territory and the legislated environmental assessment process, which delegates the duty to consult to the company, doesn’t cut it, he said.
“It’s just not conducive to what we deem as consultation,” he said. “It’s all paper emails and checkboxes.” The current system is “basically unresponsive” to most First Nations that often don’t have enough time or resources to respond to a “deluge” of technical information, he said.
For the rest of this article: https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/indigenous-rural-and-northern-affairs/two-first-nations-sign-ring-of-fire-agreement-as-another-launches-court-battle-8397400