Webequie Chief Cornelius Wabasse called for “true partnerships” at the 4th Annual Mining Ready Summit, held Oct. 28-29 in Thunder Bay.
“That’s the way going forward for us to have a step in the processes and also be part of the processes that are potentially going to happen in our area,” Wabasse said. “We have to have these agreements and they have to be real and they have to be honoured.”
Wabasse said his community does not want to sign agreements where “nothing is happening on our side.”
“We know that we have to work our part as well too to make that agreement become reality,” Wabasse said. “We need to understand as First Nations about that agreement, what we need to do to make that happen as well too.”
Wabasse said his community is not opposed to development. “We want to be able to benefit from our lands and resources,” Wabasse said. “We want to be able to benefit from any development that is happening in our area. We know that things are changing — we are not going to be trapping and fishing all our lives — we have to look at other ways of benefitting from our lands and resources.”
But the community still does practice its traditional ways of life on the land, including harvesting traditional foods such as moose, caribou, rabbits and partridge.
“We had a good fall harvest this season,” Wabasse said. “The community engaged in a fall hunting festival, so it was good to see our people still very into the traditional ways of life and also eating traditional foods.”