This op-ed was originally published in The Hill Times on September 11, 2025.
The recent suite of poorly conceived and hastily passed laws in Canada (Bill 5 in Ontario, Bill 15 in BC, and the federal Bill C5) not only weakened environmental safeguards; they also, to varying degrees, sidelined the processes that traditionally trigger the duty to meaningfully consult with First Nations before approving projects that could adversely affect Indigenous rights.
Resistance from First Nations and organizations–from the Assembly of First Nations to the Yellowhead Institute, to Idle No More Ontario, among many, has taken a variety of forms, including protests, communications and legal challenges.
We support and amplify these urgent calls to action, and recognize that the burden of holding governments accountable to their responsibility to uphold Indigenous rights should not rest solely on the shoulders of Indigenous colleagues; the rest of us too have a significant role to play.
In response to backlash from the bills, government leaders have made numerous assurances that consultations with Indigenous Peoples will occur. It’s hard to understand how this will happen because the new laws that were brought into force failed to embed consultation processes and eroded (or did away with) the customary means for engaging Indigenous People, such as environmental assessments.
Even if consultations do take place (and again, there is a constitutional duty for consultation, so governments are vulnerable to legal challenges if they fail to adequately consult), none of the new laws has a mandate to deliver upon Canada’s commitment to the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes the duty to obtain Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) prior to development activities.
While industry affiliates often frame FPIC pejoratively as a ‘veto’ power, the commitment to FPIC offers a means of revisioning status quo planning processes to ensure that Indigenous leaders are meaningful participants in project planning from the beginning, thus increasing the potential of shared objectives and co-governance opportunities, and decreasing the potential of conflict.
Most people are likely unfamiliar with FPIC as it has not yet become a household concept. Ideally, elected officials would play leadership roles in advancing public knowledge by upholding national and international commitments, but, as recent initiatives illustrate, this has not been the case.
Instead of working towards reconciliation, our leaders appear bent on turning away from it.
The letter written earlier this summer by Alberta and Ontario Ministers asking Prime Minister Carney to “refrain from reintroducing” an act “respecting water, source water, drinking water… and related infrastructure on First Nation lands” is an even more covert example. The letter is, at best, a grossly regressive assault on human rights and, at worst, racist. That provincial leaders are requesting to shelve measures to respect First Nation source and drinking water is an appalling abdication of responsibility to Indigenous Peoples (and to water.)
The subsequent apologies and damage control in the face of Indigenous backlash have been telling.
For example, in Ontario, the Environment Minister sent a letter to First Nations stating, “The intention of my previous letter was to highlight the urgent need for the federal government to ensure a regulatory environment that fosters economic growth and prosperity for all of Canada, including for First Nations communities, while respecting provincial jurisdiction.”
Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige responded that this second letter was insulting, especially as the Minister “did not withdraw his request to the federal government.”
The Minister’s defense highlights the egregious views seemingly held by some of today’s politicians: that prosperity is an objective in opposition to Indigenous rights and environmental safeguards.
This thinking, which supports Canada following the U.S. in a race backward in time, is antithetical to the future that we believe in.
We believe that Indigenous leadership and the recognition of Indigenous rights results in stronger environmental safeguards, which in turn create the necessary conditions for long-term prosperity. These objectives work best in unison. A project that is grounded in Indigenous consent is far likelier to lead to broad prosperity than one for which there is opposition, and is far likelier to include long-term planning that maintains the life systems that support us all.
If our governments recognized the synergies between these objectives, it would secure a leadership spot for Canada on the international stage. We, as Canadians from all backgrounds, should settle for nothing less.
Top image: Eugene Kung