Hundreds of First Nations members protest Ontario mining bill at Queen's Park

The province moved to shut down debate on a mining law known as Bill 5 that would give the government power to suspend provincial and municipal laws for chosen projects in areas deemed to have economic importance – and remove some endangered species protections.

The proposed legislation has sparked an angry backlash from First Nations who say the bill tramples their rights and ignores their concerns. They’ve asked the province to scrap the bill and to draft legislation alongside First Nations as partners.

“Our rights are not for sale,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak at the rally.

The government is speeding up the passage of a plethora of bills before the legislature rises later this week for a summer break.

Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, is designed to speed up the building of large projects, especially mines.

The province will not kill the bill, said Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford.

“We’re looking forward to passing the bill later this week and getting out and performing our duty to consult,” Rickford said.

Ford, Rickford and Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce are  set to soon meet with the leadership council of the Chiefs of Ontario, and then the ministers plan to visit First Nations in northern Ontario throughout the summer as they try to sell them on the bill.

The province intends to designate the Ring of Fire, a region replete with critical minerals, as a so-called “special economic zone” where it can pick and choose which laws to lift. 

Last week, under pressure from First Nations, the province made several amendments to the bill in an effort to appease them. But First Nations said it was too little, too late. 

The province will hold off on designating the Ring of Fire the first such zone until it completes consultations with affected First Nations.

First Nations have threatened to form blockades of roads, railways and mines should the bill become law.

“Certainly we don’t condone confrontation and as I said I have spoken with a number of First Nations leaders from across the province who’ve expressed that today is a rally, a peaceful reminder that they want to try to understand how the designation of an economic zone would affect their treaty rights,” Rickford said. 

“We’ve assured them that they will in no way affect their treaties rights and that, further, the duty to consult is explicit in the bill.”

A legislative committee heard from First Nations leaders and environmental groups, as well as mining groups, over two days and as the committee was considering amendments last week the NDP and Liberals used procedural tools to grind the process to a halt, in protest.

Government house leader Steve Clark has stepped in to limit further committee time and require the bill to go back to the house for third reading, with just one hour of debate, and a final vote that same day.

While Bill 5 got two days of committee hearings, the six other pieces of legislation the government is speeding up have had no hearings, and will have as little as half an hour of third-reading debate, with just nine minutes each allotted to the two recognized opposition parties. 

New Democrat Sol Mamakwa, the legislature’s lone First Nations member, said in question period that Ford was “telling untruths” about his people’s approval of the mining bill. 

Speaker Donna Skelly asked him to withdraw the comment, which Mamakwa refused to do, so she booted him from question period.

Thirty minutes later, Skelly and Mamakwa set aside their differences to feed politicians a “Taste of the North” lunch. Mamakwa had several family and community members help gather food from northwestern Ontario, fly it to Toronto and cook it at Queen’s Park.

The politicians ate moose, goose, lake trout, pickerel and beaver. Mamakwa has twice packed a frozen goose and brought it to Queen’s Park, where he plucked and cooked it – once on the front lawn.

“The beaver was a last-minute addition,” Mamakwa said with a big smile on Monday. “Food brings people together.”

With a full belly, Mamakwa returned to his differences and set out for the protest.

The opposition parties say pushing bills through without much public consultation or debate is undemocratic.

The NDP’s Opposition house leader, John Vanthof, spoke in a debate last week over the government limiting debate and bypassing committee for four bills – including the budget bill – in what’s called a time allocation motion.

“What’s happening now with the time allocation, specifically on four bills, is removing the right of the people to speak, and in many ways, the opposition to speak,” Vanthof said. 

“You actually don’t need a parliament. We’re actually almost going back to where you have, like, a king. That’s truly scary. I’m not opposed to the monarchy as a figurehead, but we came very far in our democracies to actually have parliaments. What the government is doing is basically making the premier the king.”

Vanthof stressed the seriousness of the matter, though he had the opposition benches laughing while he was reading out quotes from government house leader Steve Clark, upset about time allocation motions when he was in opposition.

“My party loves to hear from people,” Clark said in the waning days of the former Liberal government.

“If this government doesn’t want to listen to people, I’ll give them a guarantee. I’ll give them, actually, the people’s guarantee, because we will listen to them, and we will ensure that those Ontarians are being listened to.”

Clark, who during that 2017 debate called such motions “anti-democratic,” said last week that the younger Steve Clark was “maybe more brash and abrupt,” defending the current moves.

“The government has decided that these four bills are very important for us,” he said. 

“There needs to be certainty from the government’s agenda…The government decides that they’re going to prioritize certain things, the government is going to move forward with those legislations. That’s my message.”

However much the former Liberal government shut down debate, the Progressive Conservative government is a worse offender, Vanthof said.

“Two time allocation votes in a day was probably the previous record for the travesty to democracy, probably the previous record, and that was held by the Liberals,” he said.

“But this government is so efficient, including destroying the democratic process, that they put four bills, including a budget, in one time allocation motion.” 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 2, 2025.

Note to readers:This is a corrected story. An earlier version left off Nepinak from Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak’s name.