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Category Archives: First Nations Treaty Rights

Federal: Getting Major Projects Built in Canada: Discussion Paper on Regulatory Reform

By Linda Heron on Thursday, June 4th, 2026
Posted in Sustainability, Hydroelectric, ORA Submissions, Aquatic Life, Regulatory, Climate Change, River Concerns, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Regulatory Submissions, First Nations Treaty Rights, Species at Risk, Water Quality, Impact Assessment Act, Mercury

Abitibi River – Twin Falls GS

The Discussion Paper frames delays as a process problem caused by excessive oversight and public consultation considerations that delay projects by more than five years before federal decisions are made and construction begins. The evidence from ORA’s direct experience tells a different story: current delays are driven primarily by proponents who extend their own timelines while development activity proceeds on the ground, and by assessments that defer rather than decide on the most difficult questions. Reducing or eliminating public consultation will not fix these structural failures. It will make them worse, and the costs will be borne by communities, by First Nations, and ultimately by the federal government in litigation.

ORA supports a well-resourced, efficient, and credible impact assessment system, and supports reforms that fix the real bottlenecks: underfunded review staff, incomplete Crown consultation, and weak post-approval enforcement. ORA opposes the proposals that would cut public and Indigenous participation, exempt whole categories of projects from independent review, or allow construction to begin before a decision is made.

The Prime Minister promised, in the 2025 Speech from the Throne, that decisions on major projects would be made within two years. The Discussion Paper now proposes one. ORA asks the Government to hold the Prime Minister to that two-year commitment, and to withdraw the following proposals outright: early construction before a decision (Proposal 6.5); the Cabinet power to exempt projects from the species-at-risk jeopardy test (Proposal 6.8); Federal Economic Zones (Proposal 5); the removal of independent impact assessment for pipelines and transmission lines (Proposal 4); the transfer of nuclear and uranium assessments to the industry’s own regulator (Proposal 4); and the new ministerial powers to weaken environmental conditions after approval (Proposals 6.6 and 6.7).

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ERO-026-0364: Proposed Amendment to Ontario Regulation 316/07 to Remove Selected Lands from Beekahncheekahmeeng Deebahncheekayweehn Eenahohnahnuhn in Support of Pikangikum First Nation

By Linda Heron on Thursday, May 14th, 2026
Posted in Crown Land Use Policy, ORA Submissions, Environmental Registry, First Nations Treaty Rights, Public Lands Act

ORA’s support is grounded in two considerations. First, this proposal fulfills a provincial commitment made in 1968, more than fifty years ago, to increase the size of Pikangikum First Nation’s reserve. Pikangikum First Nation requested this addition by Band Council Resolution to address the community’s immediate housing and infrastructure needs. With a current on-reserve population of over 3,800 people, projected to reach up to 6,000 by 2038, and over 95% of the membership living on reserve, the need for additional land is both legitimate and urgent. Honouring this longstanding commitment is a matter of basic fairness and substantive reconciliation.

Second, ORA notes that Pikangikum First Nation has identified the 17-hectare parcel as a cultural waterway. ORA’s mission centers on the protection of river and waterway ecosystems as public trust assets sustaining ecological, cultural, and community well-being. The cultural waterway designation signals that these lands carry significance beyond their small geographic footprint within the broader 96,085-hectare park. ORA encourages Ontario and Canada to ensure that stewardship of these lands, once transferred, is guided by Pikangikum’s own knowledge of their cultural and ecological values, consistent with Pikangikum’s longstanding role as co-stewards of the “Keeping the Land” (Community-Based Land Use Plan), developed and approved jointly by Pikangikum and Ontario in 2006.

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How to Truly “Build Canada Strong”

By Linda Heron on Thursday, May 29th, 2025
Posted in Carbon Capture, Electricity Act, Mining Act, Bill 5, Hydroelectric, ORA Submissions, Regulatory, Mitigation, Climate Change, River Concerns, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, GHG Emissions, Endangered Species Act, Environmental Assessment Act, First Nations Treaty Rights, Impact Assessment Act, Species at Risk Act

While constitutional change is never easy, the right to a healthy environment is a moral imperative that Canada can no longer afford to ignore—our laws must finally reflect what science and justice demand.

Over 150 countries recognize these environmental rights in law. As the United Nations notes, Canada’s delay is ‘inconsistent with its human rights obligations’[i]—a constitutional gap that perpetuates harm.”

As the UN and Supreme Court affirm environmental rights globally, Canada’s Constitution remains an outlier—a failure we must rectify. From wildfires to poisoned waterways, Canadians are paying the price for this omission. Constitutional change is not optional—it’s survival.

[i] UNEP, Environmental Rule of Law: Global Assessment (Nairobi, 2019), 23. Continue reading →

Erin Wastewater Treatment Plant – Assertion by the Haudenosaunee

By Linda Heron on Friday, April 30th, 2021
Posted in ORA Submissions, Pollution, Regulatory, River Concerns, Rivers at Risk, Waste Water Treatment Facilities, Joint, First Nations Treaty Rights, Water Quality, Impact Assessment Act, Sewage, West Credit River

The purpose of Aaron Detlor’s communication was to “advise that the Haudenosaunee hold treaty rights over the area contemplated by this Project, and that the Project will interfere with those rights and interests… At the same time we are hereby asking Minister Wilkinson and the Crown generally to withhold any pending approvals subject to the commencement of a good faith process to uphold the honour of the Crown”.

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As Chief Spence starves, Canadians awaken from idleness and remember their roots

By Linda Heron on Tuesday, December 25th, 2012
Posted in Articles, Rivers at Risk, Media, Regulatory Submissions, First Nations Treaty Rights, Fisheries Act

Naomi Klein, The Globe and Mail

Published

I woke up just past midnight with a bolt. My six-month-old son was crying. He has a cold – the second of his short life–and his blocked nose frightens him. I was about to get up when he started snoring again. I, on the other hand, was wide awake.

A single thought entered my head: Chief Theresa Spence is hungry. Actually it wasn’t a thought. It was a feeling. The feeling of hunger. Lying in my dark room, I pictured the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation lying on a pile of blankets in her teepee across from Parliament Hill, entering day 14 of her hunger strike.

I had of course been following Chief Spence’s protest and her demand to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss the plight of her people and his demolition of treaty rights through omnibus legislation. I had worried about her. Supported her. Helped circulate the petitions. But now, before the distancing filters of light and reason had a chance to intervene, I felt her. The determination behind her hunger. The radicality of choosing this time of year, a time of so much stuffing – mouths, birds, stockings – to say: I am hungry. My people are hungry. So many people are hungry and homeless. Your new laws will only lead to more of this misery. Can we talk about it like human beings?

Lying there, I imagined another resolve too – Prime Minister Harper’s. Telling himself: I will not meet with her. I will not cave in to her. I will not be forced to do anything.

Mr. Harper may relent, scared of the political fallout from letting this great leader die. I dearly hope he does. I want Chief Spence to eat. But I won’t soon forget this clash between these two very different kinds of resolve, one so sealed off, closed in; the other cracked wide open, a conduit for the pain of the world.

But Chief Spence’s hunger is not just speaking to Mr. Harper. It is also speaking to all of us, telling us that the time for bitching and moaning is over. Now is the time to act, to stand strong and unbending for the people, places and principles that we love.

This message is a potent gift. So is the Idle No More movement – its name at once a firm commitment to the future, while at the same time a gentle self-criticism of the past. We did sit idly by, but no more.

The greatest blessing of all, however, is indigenous sovereignty itself. It is the huge stretches of this country that have never been ceded by war or treaty. It is the treaties signed and still recognized by our courts. If Canadians have a chance of stopping Mr. Harper’s planet-trashing plans, it will be because these legally binding rights – backed up by mass movements, court challenges, and direct action will stand in his way. All Canadians should offer our deepest thanks that our indigenous brothers and sisters have protected their land rights for all these generations, refusing to turn them into one-off payments, no matter how badly they were needed. These are the rights Mr. Harper is trying to extinguish now.

During this season of light and magic, something truly magical is spreading. There are round dances by the dollar stores. There are drums drowning out muzak in shopping malls. There are eagle feathers upstaging the fake Santas. The people whose land our founders stole and whose culture they tried to stamp out are rising up, hungry for justice. Canada’s roots are showing. And these roots will make us all stand stronger.

Author and activist Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo, The Shock Doctrine , and a forthcoming book on the politics of climate change.

ORA Supports the Idle No More Protests over Government Omnibus Bills that Harm First Nations Treaty Rights and Environmental Legislation

By Linda Heron on Friday, December 21st, 2012
Posted in River Concerns, Dams, CEAA, Rivers at Risk, Endangered Species Act, Environmental Assessment Act, First Nations Treaty Rights, Fisheries Act, Green Energy Act

ORA supports the grassroots Idle No More protest by First Nations and other Canadians against the federal government’s Omnibus Bills C-38 and C-45 and all affected legislation which have threatened our land and water and put First Nations’ treaty rights in grave danger.  Our major environmental legislation has been gutted, including the critically important Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.  Our fresh water and healthy river ecosystems are of vital importance for the future of all First Nations and Canadians.

“All  people will be affected by the continued damage to the land and water and we welcome Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies to join in creating healthy sustainable communities.”

ORA stands in solidarity with First Nations.  We are all treaty people.

 

IDLE-NO-MORE-JohnShaw-1

 

 

Grassy Narrows – Landmark Legal Victory – Traditional Territory Treaty Rights

By Linda Heron on Thursday, September 15th, 2011
Posted in Articles, Media, Regulatory Submissions, First Nations Treaty Rights

Ontario: Landmark Legal Victory Could End Clearcut Logging In Grassy

Narrows Territory

Yesterday the Grassy Narrows First Nation (Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek) won a major victory in their more than decade long battle to stop clearcut logging in Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. Grassy Narrows Chief and Council welcome the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to protect the rights promised to the Anishinaabe from interference by Ontario. Madam Justice Mary-Anne Sanderson’s decision, over 300 pages in length, finds that the Government of Ontario does not have the power to take away the rights in Treaty 3 by authorizing development including logging and mining.

This decision will set the stage for proper recognition and protection of those rights and, even more importantly, will help protect the Anishinaabe way of life in Northwestern Ontario. Grassy Narrows hopes that this will be a turning point in this battle. We expect that real protection for the endangered boreal forest and our way of life will be put in place immediately.

Joseph Fobister, one of the trappers who were plaintiffs in this case said, “this is a victory for our people. We have struggled for many years to save our way of life in the face of uncontrolled clearcutting, which has contaminated our waters and destroyed our lands.” Mr. Fobister also thanked the people of Grassy Narrows and the supporters who have stood by the community in the fight against clearcut logging.

Chief Simon Fobister urges the Governments of Ontario and Canada to come to the table to negotiate a modern understanding that will fully respect and implement our rights. Chief Fobister said that “this will require protecting the way of life of the Anishinaabe who were here before the logging industry came to these lands and will be here after the logging companies have moved on to other forests.”

This case describes the long history of the Anishinaabe and their fight to hold the Government of Canada to the promises made in Treaty 3. Grassy Narrows calls on Canada and Ontario to honour the spirit and intent of this decision by moving to eliminate clearcut logging in Grassy Narrows Traditional Territory and to develop a meaningful new approach to the management of this territory in partnership with Grassy Narrows.

Source: Grassy Narrows First Nation