BIG TROUT LAKE – The chief and council of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation want Premier Doug Ford’s government to know they offer no support in his Ring of Fire plans. So they sent that message by Instagram.
A short video on the social media platform shows council member Samuel Mckay and others in the remote Treaty 9 community burning documents.
The many binders contain an environmental assessment, according to the post, delivered by the province through "drive-by consultation."
The video says the Ford government “air-dropped” the documents about work in the Ring of Fire. Mckay explained in an interview with Dougall Media on Thursday that the papers were delivered at the community airport by provincial representatives.
“We do not accept this report. We did not agree to this … We’re not part of it. So we’re destroying it,” he says in the video, before setting fire to the papers.
Accompanying text slams the government for not holding hearings on Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, nearer to northern First Nations.
It also says the premier claimed “Indigenous support for the bill despite Indigenous communities across Ontario raising clear, strong opposition.”
Mckay said he learned of the documents, which were given to another KI First Nation councillor, around June 11.
“And then when we checked the boxes, that's when we realized what they were.”
Immediately, he said, “red flags went up, because I just came back from protesting against Bill 5 in Toronto at Queen’s Park.”
Mckay said he wondered why there was “such an urgency to deliver these documents right now, as soon as Bill 5 was passed.”
KI First Nation has been clear about not wanting to participate in Ring of Fire mining plans, he said.
“And then my thinking was, ‘I'm not going to send these boxes back at my cost. I didn't ask for them. They weren't invited to deliver them here.’
“And I felt that (government officials) wouldn't be coming back even if we asked them to come back and pick them up, and we felt that we needed to act immediately because of Bill 5 and Doug Ford.
“So I said, ‘Let's just burn them and record it and put it on social media,’ and that's what we did to get our message across to Doug Ford, (Indigenous Affairs Minister) Greg Rickford and whoever the proponents are working on this supply road, that we're not part of it and we don't want to be construed as participating in this process.”
The consultation papers specifically related to a proposed supply road to Webequie, a First Nation in the Ring of Fire region, he said.
But he added that the burning protest video “wasn't directed at the community and membership of Webequie … It was to get the attention and the message across to Doug Ford.”
The office of Greg Rickford, minister of Indigenous affairs and First Nations economic reconciliation and minister responsible for Ring of Fire economic and community partnerships, did not reply to a request for comment.
