CBC – Neskantaga First Nation is taking Ontario to court looking for “ground rules” on how the province should consult and accommodate Indigenous communities that are in a state of crisis.

For example:

• Forced evacuation of entire reserve in October 2020 (300 people) due to tainted water
• Under boil water advisory for 26 years
• State of emergency since 2013 after 7 people committed suicide in less than a year
  six per cent, or 12 of the 217 members living off-reserve, have tested positive for COVID-19

Those issues have been compounded by the pandemic, leaving Neskantaga ill-equipped to engage in what the province has presented as consultation on a project to build a road through its territory to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire, community leaders say. The lawsuit, filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Nov. 23, says the First Nation is looking for clarity after its “recent experience of inadequate consultations on a component of a larger road project that will run through [the First Nation’s] homelands,” and that the province’s Environmental Assessment Act “is completely silent” on how to consult Indigenous communities in crisis.