‘The premier is telling untruths to First Nations’ — a turbulent week in Ontario politics

Inside Queen’s Park, there were cries of “shame!” and “where is your heart?”

The commotion was so much that Speaker Donna Skelly was forced to call a recess.

Shouting was the only thing left for opposition members to do, as the majority Progressive Conservative government pushed its politically charged Bill 5 through the legislature on June 4, ensuring it will soon become law.

The passage of the sweeping legislation is sure to inflame already-fraught tensions with First Nations. One of the most contested aspects is its creation of “special economic zones,” where the government can establish a zone, and then exempt certain companies or projects inside it from having to comply with certain provincial laws or regulations, or municipal bylaws. It also slashes several of Ontario’s endangered species protections and shelters the government from some lawsuits.

But that was only one controversial moment, in a week stuffed full of ’em.

The Doug Ford government also moved forward legislation that blocks municipal green building standards meant to reduce emissions from construction, heating and air conditioning — a particularly stunning about-face after defending the efforts of cities to fight climate change by implementing higher standards just a few years ago.

Government officials tabled another bill promising to prioritize data centres and order the electricity regulator and operator to focus on economic growth. And they tabled a third bill the government advertised as part of an attempt to “streamline” mine tailings facilities.

Oh, and the budget, which cuts Ontario’s emergency preparedness funds, bans congestion pricing and continues the premier’s fixation with cracking down on bike lanes, also passed.

Here’s what happened over a big week at Queen’s Park.

Bill 5: ‘Our rights are not being respected’

“Speaker, we know the premier is telling untruths to First Nations,” Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa said during Question Period on June 2.

That statement, channelling the massive Indigenous and labour backlash over Bill 5, saw the Anishinaabe MPP kicked out of the legislature.

Skelly, the speaker, saw the statement as using unparliamentary language and asked Mamakwa, the deputy leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, to withdraw. He did not.

“That’s the truth,” Mamakwa protested. “Our rights are not being respected.”

Several First Nations leaders say the government is trying to usher in a flurry of mining activity on their territories without properly consulting them. Joining them this week was Ontario Federation of Labour president Laura Walton, who said the bill was a “direct threat to Indigenous Rights, worker protections and democracy itself.”

Opposition members also say the “special economic zones” could be used as immunity from future scandals similar to the Greenbelt investigation. The government claims the bill is a way to fight back against U.S. tariffs, by unlocking Ring of Fire mineral deposits on Treaty 9 territory in far northern Ontario, and also says it will respect the constitutional duty to consult and accommodate Indigenous Peoples.

But it’s clear First Nations solidarity against the bill is growing. Two days after his ejection, Mamakwa delivered a powerful speech outlining what Canadians can expect next.

“This government’s colonial tactic of attempting to divide and conquer our nations is failing,” he thundered in the legislature on June 4, as the bill was poised to pass.

“First Nations rights holders are coming together instead, stronger and more unified than ever, to assert their rights, their sovereignty and their jurisdiction over the lands we’ve lived on since time immemorial.”

Overnight, Grassy Narrows First Nation community activist Chrissy Isaacs camped out on Queen’s Park’s south lawn in protest of the bill.

“I’m staying here all night because Bill 5 will hurt my family by allowing even more pollution of our life-giving river — as an Anishinaabe mother I cannot allow that,” she said in a statement.

Grassy Narrows has endured mercury contamination from a pulp and paper mill dumping pollution into the water in the 1960s and 1970s.

Green building restrictions: ‘It was not the intention of the government’ — until it was

The Ford government once promised Ontario cities it would not intervene in their quest to establish high-quality green building standards.

Back in 2022, cities like Toronto were concerned provincial legislation called the “More Homes Built Faster Act” would hobble their ability to address climate change by stripping them of powers to set green standards that went beyond the building code’s minimum requirements.

Green building standards include requiring heat pumps instead of natural gas, using energy-efficient materials or planting trees to provide shade. It’s a big deal: carbon pollution from buildings represents almost a quarter of Ontario’s total emissions, the third-largest source behind transportation and manufacturing.

Facing backlash, the Ford government eventually amended that 2022 bill. Then-municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark sought to reassure the Clean Air Council, a group of 44 municipalities and health units, in a February 2023 letter that “it was not the intention of the government” to block more climate-friendly buildings.

“The government recognizes the important work being done by municipalities through green standards to encourage green-friendly development,” he wrote.

Queen’s Park, he added, “is committed to supporting these efforts.”

Well, that was then, and this is now.

On June 3, Bill 17, the “Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act,” was carried on third reading. It is likely to become law, given the Conservative majority. The bill makes it clear the government does, in fact, intend to block municipal green standards that supersede the province’s building code.

A statement from the office of new Housing Minister Rob Flack to the Canadian Press claims the new bill is meant to spur “faster approvals and reduced costs.”

Building fast has long been the government’s raison d’etre, The Narwhal has reported, but critics say this approach will actually lead to homeowners and tenants shouldering higher costs for everything from heating and cooling to flood mitigation down the road.

On May 29, Beaches-East York Liberal MPP Mary-Margaret McMahon called on the government to give the bill its full consideration, as it rushed through the legislative process. She read out Clark’s two-year-old letter as evidence of the Conservative flip-flop.

“I would cordially, kindly, compassionately and caringly ask the government to reconsider, and I know that they’re listening so intently right now to my request,” she said.

Yet more bills about energy and mining

As political controversy boiled over on Bill 5 and Bill 17 last week, the province kept its foot on the gas pedal, passing, tabling and announcing more pieces of legislation — even as Queen’s Park gets set to rise for the summer break.

Ontario’s budget passed on June 3. Along with cutting emergency funding, it pledges to continue plowing forward on highways like the 413 and the Bradford Bypass and a plan to dig a tunnel under Highway 401.

It also prevents local governments from instituting congestion pricing, which has been proven to cut down on traffic in other cities, like New York.

The same day the budget passed, the government also tabled Bill 40, the “Protect Ontario by Securing Affordable Energy for Generations Act.”

Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce said the bill would order the Ontario Energy Board, an arms-length regulator, and the Independent Electricity System Operator, a Crown corporation that manages Ontario’s electricity system, to “explicitly prioritize economic goals and economic growth.”

The current government already has a history of strong-arming the energy board away from efforts to consider climate change in decision-making.

The bill would also “prioritize” hydrogen production and getting power to data centres, Lecce said. Hydrogen can be produced from clean energy, but is also often produced from natural gas. Research has shown that in some cases, hydrogen production is making it harder to get off fossil fuels, a phenomenon known as carbon lock-in.

For data centres, the buildings that store digital information, the bill would create a “framework” to manage electricity connection requests. The number of data centres in Ontario is growing with the increased use of artificial intelligence and they are anticipated to use 13 per cent of the province’s energy by 2035.

Meanwhile, another piece of legislation tabled on June 4, the “Protect Ontario by Cutting Red Tape Act,” is another example of an omnibus bill, amending 22 acts.

One of the acts it amends, the Crown Forest Sustainability Act from 1994, helps manage forests. The government wants to authorize the “removal of forest resources” without a permit.

A government press release highlighting the bill and its broader “red tape reduction package” mentions a government initiative related to tailings storage facilities, which refers to the discarded rock and other materials from mining like wastewater. However the legislation does not include the words “mines” or “tailings” and does not amend Ontario’s Mining Act.