If Ontario doesn't come to the table soon, years of work to protect the land and water of the Far North are at risk.
Mushkegowuk Council Grand Chief Leo Friday issued a statement today urging Premier Doug Ford to meet with their chiefs. They want the province to agree to immediately protect the coast of Western James Bay and southwestern Hudson Bay, and the North French River.
The ask isn't for money, in 2022 the federal government committed $800 million to create up to four Indigenous-led conservation areas, including Mushkegowuk.
The group also has the documentation to move the project ahead, said Lawrence Martin, Mushkegowuk Council's lands and resources department director.
Because Ontario has jurisdiction over land, the province needs to sign off on the project.
"Since that (2022) announcement was made, Omushkego people have worked tirelessly to realize our vision for the project, called Omushkego Wahkohtowin in our language, which will secure the protection of our lands and waters for generations to come," said Friday in the statement.
"This plan balances sustainable economic development for communities with the preservation of areas that hold immeasurable cultural and ecological significance, not just for Omushkego people but for the world."
The window to bring the efforts to reality is under immediate threat, said Friday.
"Despite our best efforts to work with the province of Ontario, we have yet to see meaningful signals of their willingness to work with us," he said.
There are two bigger projects in play — one to protect the marine area of James and Hudson bays and one to protect the land. There are also other initiatives, such as Moose Cree First Nation's work to permanently protect the North French Watershed.
Mushkegowuk is asking the province to come to the table for the terrestrial side of the process, which includes a conservation and financial plan, said Martin.
“That’s the missing part. We have a governance plan because it’s based on our feasibility study we’ve been doing for the last three years and we have a financial plan because the Government of Canada promised us $100 million that we can use to develop the plan and carry out the plan for the next 10 years,” he said.
The province has to sign on as well because it has jurisdiction over lands.
"Anything to do with land, we have to refer to Ontario’s participation, that’s why our grand chief is urging Ontario to come to the table now,” he said.
In February, Deputy Grand Chief Natasha Martin met with the Premier and Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation Minister Greg Rickford.
At that meeting, Lawrence Martin said the province agreed to work with Mushkegowuk in three areas:
- Defining how to move ahead on the conservation and critical mineral strategy through a land-use planning process,
- Trying to acquire federal funding to help with clean water in communities, housing infrastructure; and
- Holding a treaty roundtable with Mushkegowuk chiefs to talk about other issues and how to deal with those over time.
Martin said they've sent texts and emails to the Premier and Minister Rickford since the February meeting.
“There’s always good responses, but nothing gets carried out,” he said.
TimminsToday reached out to Rickford's office for comment. No response has been received.
This past winter, progress was made on the national marine conservation area (NMCA) project.
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The feasibility study was accepted, allowing the project to move on to the next steps, which include negotiating with Parks Canada.
The 90,000-square-kilometre area is home to polar bears, belugas and many Arctic and subarctic species. The region's wetlands are part of the largest wetland complex in North America.
Martin expects those negotiations to start in the coming months once the federal fall economic statement is released.
Time is critical in talking to the province.
The original deadline to have the province sign on was June 30, 2024.
“And now we’re the middle of September and we’re still begging for them to come to the table and ask for them to talk to us so we can actually plan this out,” said Martin.
Impending elections are also a factor.
The fixed election date for the next federal election is October 2025. With a minority government, a non-confidence vote could topple the government at any time.
Provincially, Ford has also been hinting at calling an election ahead of June 2026.
For Martin, who's spent years working on the conservation initiatives, the uncertainty is extra pressure.
"If the election is moved ahead then all of this stuff we’re talking about is gone away, basically we’ll lose the opportunity. So all these jobs we thought would be created from this work, all the staff housing, the infrastructure required and the continued monitoring and doing research on the land would all be gone," he said.
"All you would then have left is the treaty, but the treaty itself has a stipulation in it that allows the government to continue ... so the mining and the forestry and the hydro dams and all of those kind of permits and activities will continue, there will be nobody out there monitoring the land doing any research from our end. It just leaves it wide open for Ontario and mining companies and so forth to continue to ravage the land."
When it comes to working with industry, Martin has been steadfast in his message: conservation and mining can go hand-in-hand.
In northwestern Ontario, the Ring of Fire could potentially bring hundreds of years of mining critical minerals and more people living in that region. The rivers and streams flow into the James and Hudson bays.
"We want to work with the mining companies that come into the territory through a land-use plan so that there can be certainty that will be created by having First Nations and mining companies working together on these land-use maps so that everybody identifies where conservation starts and ends, and where mining can happen,” he said.
He's also talked to mining companies and associations.
There's a consensus, he said, that having mining companies and First Nations agree on land-use planning creates certainty for the investors.
"We’re on the right track, we feel, and we thought the province was also, but silence could be read into many things. Right now we’re afraid that the opportunities will be missed because with a minority government in Canada it could topple over next week,” he said.
