TORONTO — It's crucial that mining companies operating in the Ring of Fire do their due diligence to collect data on how they're consulting with First Nations.
That's according to Jason Rasevych, the board chair of the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association, adding that ensuring the companies have the information the communities will need to make informed choices is very important.
“I think there's still going to be the responsibility of the Crown to consult and also achieve consent,” he said of future development in the mineral-rich Far North. “The communities, they're going need more information to be able to make an informed decision.”
“But government may already have their mind made up, so there's going to be a need to do and collect the right type of data.”
This comes as newly-re-elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford has ramped up his rhetoric around fast-tracking resource extraction in the Ring of Fire, seemingly downplaying the need for Indigenous consultation at a campaign stop in Sudbury prior to the election, and warning the federal government “to get out of the way so we can get these projects done" in remarks on day one of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual convention in Toronto.
Ford has also sharply criticized Ottawa’s impact assessment process as “wrongheaded” and “redundant.”
Responding to Ford’s comments in Sudbury in late February, Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said in a statement that “Premier Ford’s promise to ‘unlock’ the Ring of Fire and fast-track development is a direct attack on the inherent, Treaty and Aboriginal rights of First Nations who have governed and stewarded these lands since time immemorial.”
“These are not ‘Ontario’s minerals; they exist within our territories, and any attempt to dictate their development without our full and meaningful involvement is an overreach of provincial authority and represents a complete failure to understand and honour the relationship between the government and First Nations in Ontario.”
The Anishnawbe Business Professional Association held a forum on Monday at the PDAC convention designed to “explore the critical intersection of environmental, social and governance principles, sustainability and Indigenous reconciliation in the context of the Ring of Fire mining development,” according to a media release from the organization.
“It's important because mining companies are going to need to respond to non-financial disclosures to their shareholders and their investors,” Rasevych said. “They're going to need to be able to determine what data they use specifically for climate-related disclosures and Indigenous reconciliation disclosures.”
The panel included subject experts from a pair of mining companies with a presence in the Ring of Fire: Teck Resources and Wyloo, Rasevych said. They were joined by representatives from BMO Global Asset Management and the faculty of law at the University of Toronto — the latter two have been collaborating on a study related to human rights in the Ring of Fire, he added.
“It's really important for companies to not just disclose their financials, but talk about the impacts they're having on Indigenous people and the relationship they have with communities,” Rasevych said.
“So, making sure that there is actually hard data included in these disclosures.”
That's an area of data collection that hasn't quite kept up, he added.
"Right now, with data science and the ability to to collect data, the environmental greenhouse gas emissions data is a lot more, I would say, easier to track that, per se, social impact," Rasevych said.
"We need to catch up on the Indigenous rights (and) Indigenous relations areas."
