Northern Ontario Business – On Wednesday, Jan. 19, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Neskantaga, Kashechewan and Eabametoong First Nations chiefs sent a joint letter to federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault.

According to the letter, the chiefs met virtually with Guilbeault on Jan. 17 and expressed concerns about the terms of reference (TOR) for the Regional Impact Assessment (RIA) in the carbon-rich peatlands known as the “Breathing Lands”. “These are the world’s lungs, and rampant mining development could not only destroy this globally critical carbon sink but release its huge store of carbon and escalate climate change further into catastrophe,” reads the letter.

The chiefs said there needs to be an Indigenous-led investigation and decision-making process regarding the Breathing Lands and called Canada to restart “afresh” with Indigenous nations mutually and equally participating in developing, enforcing and leading the RIA. “What Canada, in agreement with Ontario, plans to do is far from proper or safe, and instead promotes recklessness and danger,” reads the letter. “Your draft TOR is narrow in geographic and activity scope, and wrongly excludes us Indigenous peoples from all but token roles.”

“Any attempt by the Crown to come back with less than the equality we have asked for and deserve, and which the fight against climate disaster needs, will be seen as nothing but an attempt to dress up a broken window with pretty drapes,” the letter states. “And any such attempt will lead to our active enforcement of the Moratorium issued last April.” “We will not accept mere “participation” in a unilateral, top-down, Crown-led process that ignores our jurisdiction, laws, and responsibilities,” they said in the letter.