MARTEN FALLS, Ont. – For Christmas, Chief Eli Moonias received a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey autographed by Wendel Clark. His remote northern Ontario community of Marten Falls got 50 turkeys and a visit from Santa, laden with children’s gifts.
And in March, the 61-year-old chief will be granted his wish of travelling to China – if he can get his passport in time. They’re all gifts from mining companies who need the chief’s support to develop what could be a world-class base-metal discovery.
Moonias’s community sits next to what has become known as the Ring of Fire. Marten Falls is a small, fly-in reserve — just three streets of houses for about 300 people at the junction of the Albany and Ogoki rivers. It’s in the middle of one of the only forests in the world that has never been touched by industry, an area that hosts six of Canada’s biggest rivers.
When trapping for furs lost its lustre several decades ago, nothing replaced it in Marten Falls. Unless the residents are working for the band office or a government-run social service, they’re almost certainly unemployed — and more often than not, addicted to prescription painkillers at the expense of putting food on the table for their families. Never have they felt more empowered.
“If you don’t reassure me, that’s when I say No,” Moonias says in an interview at the band’s resource office, wallpapered with maps and surveys. About 130 kilometres to the north of the reserve, multinational miner Cliffs Natural Resources wants to develop a huge chromite mine to make a key ingredient in stainless steel. The firm brought Marten Falls the Christmas turkeys.
Next door, Toronto-based Noront Resources wants to mine nickel and other base metals. Noront employees chipped together to bring the Leafs shirt, Santa and an entertainment troupe of breakdancers.
Co-operation from First Nations is essential for both companies, and for anyone else wanting to do business in the remote James Bay lowlands.
“The leverage is there because it’s our territory,” Moonias says bluntly. “The industry needs us on side to go ahead.”
Demand for commodities is expected to stay relatively strong over the coming 20 years, reflecting the growth of the middle class in emerging markets, especially China. But the super-cycle can’t last forever, so the companies want to get their permits and workforces lined up within a few years.
Politically, the stakes are even higher. The Ontario government is dealing with a shrunken manufacturing base. The province wants to diversify its economy and envisions tens of thousands of jobs from many mines in the James Bay lowlands.
Ottawa is equally invested. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made “responsible resource development” a central tenet of his government, completely overhauling legislation and government operations to spur investment in extractive industries.
At the same time, public pressure to improve the standard of living on reserves is soaring. Native activists are taking to the streets to demand a larger say in natural resource development and government policy-making.
Harper’s reputation depends on him pulling it off. He has just put cabinet minister Tony Clement in charge of the Ring of Fire file to make sure it happens.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Globe News website: http://www.globalnews.ca/world/money/ring+of+fire+mining+prospects+empower+canadas+most+disenfranchised+natives/6442776165/story.html#ixzz2FcUa5YkY