Construction on the roads to the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario should start this year and be completed by 2031, the province announced Monday about a project that has divided several First Nations.
Premier Doug Ford said construction will begin in June and finish several years ahead of schedule, though the province had never said when it had hoped to complete the long-discussed road to the proposed mining region.
“This accelerated schedule is a baseline, we won’t rest until we’ve taken every single last day, every second, every week and month out of the plan to open these roads as quickly as we can,” Ford said.
Ford made the announcement at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention, a major mining conference in Toronto, where he also signed economic partnership agreements with Marten Falls First Nation and Webequie First Nation.
The government said those agreements will ensure the First Nations in the Ring of Fire region are full economic partners and benefit from job opportunities associated with development there.
The First Nations in the region can currently only be accessed by air or winter road, and Ford said all-season roads to the area will give access to what are believed to be large deposits of critical minerals, as well as bring more opportunities to the communities and their youth.
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The Ring of Fire is more than 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay and nearby First Nations all remain on diesel to power their communities.
Climate changing is affecting Canada’s north, and these communities, far more than the south. Winter road seasons are shrinking, which affects how much diesel can be brought in. It also affects how many building supplies for housing and other critical infrastructure can be brought in, limiting First Nations’ growth.
There is a housing crisis in Webequie and Marten Falls, along with other First Nations in northern Ontario. Mental health problems also hit the communities much harder than the rest of the province.
Ford has pledged to lift the First Nations out of poverty and connect them to the provincial highway system with these roads. But that comes with the caveat of supporting the province’s plans to mine the region.
Through the province’s Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program, Ontario will help with equity opportunities for both First Nations to run new airports in their communities along with ownership of aggregate businesses to build the roads.
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They’ll also float the First Nations money to own and run accommodation businesses for the work camps that will be needed to build the roads.
The Webequie Supply Road and Marten Falls Community Access Road should see construction start this year, while work on the Northern Link Road is expected to get underway in 2028 and open three years later.
The province is also upgrading two roads south of the proposed roads to handle increased commercial traffic from the mining sites.
The agreement means a “future for our youth,” said Marten Falls Chief Bruce Achneepineskum.
“We need to give our youth a chance to be equal partners to move forward in this area where there’s development and training opportunities available and future jobs,” he said.
“So it means a great deal for our youth and our members in the face of oncoming development in our area.”
Marten Falls wants to take the lead on any development happening in its traditional territories, Achneepineskum said.
New Webequie Chief Lorraine Whitehead, who beat longtime chief Cornelius Wabasse in a narrow election victory in late January, said the agreement provides “training, education, capacity building” that her community needs for economic opportunities.
“For Webequie, this is about self determination,” she said. “It is about ensuring that our community members are fully participating and leading any work happening on our lands, whether it be business development, construction, environmental monitoring, engineering.”
Whitehead also said she is looking for a review of the project.
“I want to be clear this government-to-government announcement today with Ontario is only the beginning of a conversation to explore commercial possibilities,” she said. “I want to say that we look forward to meeting with the industry to discuss an Indigenous-led environmental review.”
Both Webequie and Marten Falls have submitted their environmental assessments on the roads to the province for review, a process that took more than six years to complete. Ontario and the federal government have also signed a “co-operation” agreement that will see Ottawa largely get out of the way on duplicative assessments.
The federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada also recently announced it would not designate the proposed mine in the Ring of Fire for a further assessment, clearing another regulatory hurdle.
Wyloo, an Australian mining giant, has proposed to mine the region at a site it calls Eagle’s Nest and it’s looking to process nickel and copper. It and Juno Corp., a Canadian junior mining operation, along with a few other companies have staked more than 40,000 claims to lands filled with nickel, copper, chromite and other minerals used to make steel, batteries and electronics.
Juno has also announced discoveries of several large gold deposits in the region.
But the project and roads to the remote area of northern Ontario are controversial, with several nearby First Nations opposed to development without their consent.
Neskantaga First Nation and Attawpisakat First Nation members are building an encampment along the Attawapiskat River where one of the bridges is set to be built. They plan to meet and block the progress of the road construction whenever it arrives.
Neskantaga Chief Gary Quisess said he was disappointed with Monday’s announcement.
“We never gave up our rights to let our resources go,” Quisess said.
Neskantaga has the longest boil-water advisory in the country at 31 years and counting. Successive federal governments have failed to fix the situation. Now, the federal government flies in planeloads of bottled water every few days. There is also a state of emergency over suicides that has been in place for more than a decade.
And last spring, a diesel leak caused the shutdown of the community’s nursing station, forcing people to seek medical help at an old house with little privacy.
The nursing station remains unusable.
Quisess wants the problems in his community solved before any discussions on roads or development begin.
“Both governments have said, ‘Canada is not for sale,'” Quisess said. “So this is our message: our resources are not for sale.”
Two pieces of legislation passed last year caused a firestorm among most First Nations in the province. Bill C-5 gives the federal government sweeping powers to speed up permitting for “nation-building projects.”
Meanwhile, Ford’s government passed Bill 5 into law, which gives Ontario the power to suspend provincial and municipal laws in a prescribed area under so-called “special economic zones.”
Ford was asked Monday if he would designate the Ring of Fire a special economic zone.
“We don’t need it when you have great partners,” he said, pointing to Achneepineskum and Whitehead.
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