In a striped shirt and baseball cap, Mushkegowuk Council Grand Chief Leo Friday reminded a group of besuited government officials he had travelled almost 700 kilometres from northern Ontario to the provincial legislature in downtown Toronto.
Slamming a hand on the table and gesturing at the door of the Queen’s Park committee room, Friday told the officials he knocked before coming in.
“But you don’t even come and knock on my door to speak with me,” he said in Oji-Cree, as the officials listened through headphones to a translator. “You are just trying to access things inside my house.”
So began one of the most intense weeks in recent Queen’s Park history. Since May 22, Grand Chief Friday and 24 other First Nation leaders have travelled long distances — including from Sandy Lake First Nation, nearly 1,500 kilometres away — to appear before a government that failed to visit before pushing through legislation that could have hugely detrimental impacts to their homelands. They came with a blunt warning: repeal Bill 5 or face lawsuits and land blockades.
“By pushing forward Bill 5, the Ontario government is guaranteeing a long and very unnecessary fight with First Nations,” Grand Chief Friday told the 12 committee members reviewing the legislation; six from the governing Progressive Conservatives, six from the opposing parties.
The sweeping 229-page legislation proposes to create “special economic zones” for mining and development where provincial and municipal regulations can be evaded, and eliminate protections for species at risk and cultural heritage.
The government touts the bill as a response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, pledging it would turn Ontario into an “economic powerhouse,” starting by turning the remote and environmentally sensitive Ring of Fire region in the James Bay Lowlands into its first special economic zone. But the bill was written without having a single conversation with many Indigenous communities that would be most impacted by an increase in unchecked mining activity — communities that have historically not reaped the financial or social rewards of such industry.
Chiefs of Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict reminded the committee that every major court case between First Nations and the government was rooted in a failure to fulfill its duty to consult and protect the environment. “These [development] opportunities must be built upon respect. They are supposed to be a recognition of the inherent Treaty Rights, the jurisdiction and obligation our communities have to all creation, to the waters and to the lands,” he said. “These are sacred, sacred.”
“This legislation is the wrong way,” he said. “It’s a path that we know we have seen time and time again … that will lead to potential confrontation on the ground.”
Long before Trump’s tariff threats, the government was warned internally about the likelihood of receiving this reaction to a similar proposal. In February 2024, the government introduced the Get It Done Act, which now allows it to expropriate land for major infrastructure projects. Internal documents obtained by The Narwhal at the time showed the government was considering creating “special building zones” to take over local decision-making on certain priority projects. The internal document said that while “developers and construction companies may react positively,” Indigenous communities and environmental stakeholders might take issue with the plan.
“It may be perceived that the Ontario government is seeking ways to circumvent its duty to consult,” the document says.
The scene at Queen’s Park over the past few weeks suggests that’s what is being perceived today.
Among the First Nations represented at Queen’s Park this past week are those that haven’t had access to clean drinking water for decades, let alone a hospital in their territory. Some have seen mines come and go, destroying the environment from which they harvest food and medicine. There were also those who say they have honestly tried to build a strong working relationship with the government, only to see their years-long efforts destroyed by this bill.
These 25 leaders represent Anishinaabe, Cree and other communities across the province, who live on the Great Lakes, in the Ring of Fire and on the Manitoba border, where wildfire season has already begun. They came to give the government both a history lesson and a glimpse at the future. Bill 5, they said both at committee and in press conferences, would be “detrimental” to their rights and their way of life, threatening to “destroy” their homelands. Their request was for “respect, recognition and reconciliation,” one chief said — three things that are absent from Bill 5.
At least two leaders said they extended invitations to Premier Doug Ford to discuss the bill with their communities that weren’t accepted. Instead, on Monday, Ford labelled those opposing Bill 5 as “radical environmentalists.”
“For someone like Doug Ford, who is prepared to do away with all his obligations, to call us radical is just absurd,” Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler told reporters. “I would call them radical colonizers … .”
The anger and frustration was impossible to ignore, echoing from the committee room to the legislature floor and media broadcasts. During two days of tense public hearings on the bill, most speakers addressed the committee in their native languages and at one point, Indigenous onlookers created a drumming circle inside Queen’s Park.
Now, the government appears to be scrambling to soften its previously cutthroat approach. On Wednesday, the government announced it would amend the bill to include a stated commitment to consult with First Nations on regulations in the bill after it passes into law, as well as a clause on what the government has now dubbed “Indigenous-led special economic zones.”
But the change came too late; trust, the First Nations leaders said, had been broken. Many said it was an insult that they had to show up to be heard and to convince the government — over hours of testimonies — they are open to development done fairly, sustainably and with meaningful collaboration.
“Bill 5 is an attempt to consult after the fact,” Scott McLeod, Lake Huron Regional Chief for the Anishinabek Nation, told officials. “It’s based on promises and ‘trust me.’ ”
“But we don’t trust you. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.”
Over the past seven years, the Ford government’s repeated efforts to revamp land-use and environmental regulations without properly consulting First Nations have been met with fierce opposition. This was perhaps most notable in 2022 after the government decided to open swaths of protected lands, such as the Greenbelt, through its omnibus housing legislation, Bill 23 — a law also passed without consulting any First Nation.
In 2023, members of the First Nations in the Ring of Fire region came to Queen’s Park to protest the government’s decisions to speed up mining in their lands. Ford refused to meet them then. Two years later, little has changed.
“You come into our lands, where we survive on the waters and the land, without speaking to us. This is like what was done to our people before our lands were taken,” Grand Chief Friday said in his remarks. “You’re repeating that same history.”
“If you keep excluding us, there will only be more resistance,” he continued. “We will not sacrifice lands and waters in the name of prosperity.”
The public hearings for Bill 5 began with NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa asking the committee to consider extending the review timeline by a few days so they could include a hearing in Thunder Bay, closer to many affected First Nations and the Ring of Fire. He made the motion before a crowd of chiefs, members of Indigenous communities and the general public, many wearing “Stop Bill 5” stickers, as they packed the committee and overflow rooms.
Mamakwa and his colleagues in opposition cited the lack of Internet in remote areas as one reason communities needed more time to absorb the bill, along with the distance and cost of travel. The motion was lost with all Conservative committee members voting against it.
“They have to come up, experience the north,” Adam Fiddler, legal advisor with Sandy Lake First Nation, told the committee. “That shows more sincerity and involvement than money.”
Mamakwa and his NDP colleagues have made the motion at least six times since, both in committee and in the legislature, with no success.
The government is “blowing smoke,” said Mamakwa, whose remote northwestern riding straddles the vast Ring of Fire mineral deposits. During the committee hearing, he asked Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce, who tabled the bill, and Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford to define the treaties that have long existed between First Nations and the Ontario government. Lecce deferred to Rickford, who said he respected the government’s duty to consult. “No government should be in the business of developing major resource projects without developing First Nations in proximity to it,” Rickford said.
“Do you understand that with this bill, you’re not honouring the treaties, but you’re actually violating them?” Mamakwa asked both ministers.
“With greatest respect, I disagree with that. It honours it,” Rickford said, adding the government’s duty to consult begins after legislation has been tabled.
Lecce told reporters afterwards, “It’s important that we listen, we hear perspective but we don’t lose sight of what we’re trying to achieve, which is economic self-reliance.” Rickford reiterated that Bill 5 “enhances” the government’s duty to consult by creating “a common interest and a common focus,” including a $70-million fund to boost Indigenous participation in the legislative process.
“It’s intended to buy silence,” Grand Chief Joel Abram of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, told reporters of the fund. “Economic reconciliation without legal and moral accountability is just another form of coercion.”
Throughout the hearings, there remained a stark contrast between the remarks from the government and the Indigenous leaders who spoke after them. While Lecce promised to “build out the north,” Indigenous leaders spoke of damages the north was still grappling with from historical mining activity and severe underfunding of social services, damages the government hadn’t yet addressed. And while Lecce promised a “one project, one process” system for mining, Indigenous leaders asserted the importance of “one planet, one species.”
Each leader who came before the committee highlighted the key risks of Bill 5 over and over again. To start, the bill removes protections for heritage sites, allowing development to occur without archaeological studies to safeguard Indigenous burial and sacred sites.
The bill also eliminates protections for endangered species, which diminishes Indigenous communities’ ability to be stewards of the land. “If you pass Bill 5, you can say goodbye nature. I really need you to understand that,” Anthony (Miptoon) Chegahno, the head councillor for Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, told the committee in a virtual appearance.
“I’m an Elder who loves nature,” he said, adding that birds and plants are making a “comeback” in his homeland because of Ontario’s long-standing commitment to working with First Nations to protect and restore endangered species.
“I was so proud of that,” Chegahno said, but Bill 5 threatens to repeal that law and that agreement. “Don’t change it, please. Don’t change the species protections because then we won’t have nature and we as humans will pass away.”
And despite the amendment to include Indigenous consultation after the bill has passed, the legislation remains unclear about how First Nations will be consulted or involved in the mining process that begins and ends on their land.
Chief Shelly Moore-Frappier of Temagami First Nation told reporters there are 12,000 mining and staking claims in her territory alone. The nation only has one staff member to assess them; to review them all, this person would have to review 38 claims every day for a year without taking a day off.
“This is untenable,” she said. “Rather than addressing the systemic imbalance, Bill 5 proposes to streamline an already broken system, making it even harder for nations like ours to engage.”
Last year, First Nations called on the province to institute a one-year moratorium on mining so they could properly assess the impacts and claims in their territories. The moratorium never materialized, Moore-Frappier said.
“Mining is about strangers with no attachment to our lands and waters, removing pieces of our territories for economic gain. Often, those profits rarely come back to the places from which they were derived,” she said. “This is pure colonialism.”
“Now, the province says it’s going to protect the mining industry from China by empowering the minister to suspend the system and deny certain individuals from being able to hold mining authorizations in the province,” she continued. “Why are the mining sector’s interests being protected over First Nations?”
“Ontario is trying to legislate us out of the conversation,” she said. “That won’t work.”
Among those watching the hearings closely was Margaret Kenequanash. She’s the CEO of Watay Power, an 1,800-kilometre transmission project connecting 24 First Nations in northern Ontario to the power grid, and the largest Indigenous-led infrastructure project in Canada. Kenequanash has spent 18 years building positive relationships and trust in these communities for development to move forward.
“And just like that, government through Bill 5 is throwing all that away,” she said, as she watched a group of First Nations people create a drumming circle inside Queen’s Park. “It baffles me that the government is taking a 25-year step backwards.”
“It is fine for government to clean up their internal controls and systems, but it cannot be done at the expense of our Aboriginal, Treaty Rights and inherent rights. Respect is still paramount,” she added. “And under Bill 5, Wataynikaneyap Power would have been impossible to build.”
The trust, the duty to consult, the impetus to build meaningful relationships would not be there.
Other energy projects on First Nations land would also be impeded, leaders said. In April, Moose Cree and Taykwa Tagamou First Nations “stood shoulder-to-shoulder” with Lecce to begin a co-planning process to build hydroelectric stations in northern Ontario.
“Only eight days later, Ontario introduced Bill 5, abandoning a productive partnership-based approach that has supported a number of successful, large-scale industrial projects in the Moose Cree Homeland,” Chief Peter Wesley said in a written statement. “Bill 5 is the exact opposite of that successful approach and shows that this government cannot be trusted.”
Sandy Lake First Nation band councillor Cynthia Fiddler said her community is still dealing with the aftermath of a shuttered gold and silver mine that opened in 1939. A smell remains in the air and the vegetation is destroyed.
“Why can’t the clean-up be fast-tracked?” Fiddler asked. “This bill is fast-tracking what we don’t want. We will support Canada in your fight to unite but it can’t be at the expense of our lands and families.”
The disconnect is not distance but “lack of will,” former chief of Neskantaga First Nation Wayne Moonias told the committee. “I’m willing to talk,” he said, “but they want to ram the legislation on us.”
His community has had a boil-water advisory for 30 years, three months and 12 days, he told the committee. “If your premier says we’ll bulldoze your area, how can we have reconciliation?” he asked.
“There will be no bulldozing across our river system without our consent,” he continued. “We will continue to be here long after these companies have finished looking for metals.”
Efforts for a positive working relationship are also impeded by Bill 5 stipulating that the government cannot be sued. But as one Indigenous leader after another warned the committee, Canadian courts have historically found in favour of First Nations in cases where duty to consult has not been met. “And this Bill 5 will not meet its duty to consult,” Moonias said.
Such cases are lengthy and expensive, and have previously resulted in projects being abandoned, “which will not create certainty for industry or government that wants to fast-track development in our homelands,” Moonias added. “The only way to avoid delays when it comes to extracting resources on our lands is to fully obtain our free, prior, informed consent.”
Without it, “all attempts to fast-track to the Ring of Fire will fail,” he said. “Our people will meet you on the land. This is about our life. This bill, and the way this government is approaching this bill, it’s going to destroy our homelands. It’s going to take away our sturgeon. It’s going to destroy our medicines that that we use for healing.”
“We say no. Neskantaga says no.”
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