By MJ McCarron
Despite the fact that Camp Morningstar’s ultimate attraction was denied, permitting Canadian Premium Sand to proceed destroying the sacred lands of Hole Water First Nation, Camp Morningstar is ramping up its battle to stress the Province of Manitoba to implement Free, Prior and Knowledgeable Consent earlier than transition mineral exploration threatens extra First Nations’ lands on Treaty 5 Territory. Manitoba has 29 of 31 transition minerals (additionally referred to as vital minerals by the mining business) largely in two streaks, one throughout the North and one alongside the Chook River space within the South.
After 5 years, the environmental license for the Wanipigow/Hole Water Sand Mine was granted to Canadian Premium Sand with out significant session at a time when the remainder of the boreal forest in japanese Manitoba faces rampant transition mineral prospecting and exploration.
Historic impacts weren’t a part of the environmental evaluate course of, dismissing the cumulative results of useful resource extraction on the area together with the waste from a gold mine tailings pond upstream on the Wanipigow River, the supply of consuming water for Hole Water First Nation. By the point the gold mine acquired its Environmental Act License, 98 hectares of trapline had been razed when the unique tailings pond failed. Forestry additionally unintentionally destroyed massive swaths of timber in huge forest fires in 1989.
Traditionally, the unique territory of Hole Water First Nation earlier than reserves have been assigned, has been underneath useful resource extraction stress because the arrival of the primary settlers. Lumber, coal, fish, and a lath mill have been established on Black Island, whereas the Peoples have been relocated to the mainland the place the Indian Act stipulated they might not depart until that they had a cross and couldn’t rent a lawyer to defend their land rights. These legal guidelines have been simply lifted within the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties. By that point, sacred websites have been endlessly misplaced on Black Island.
The mainland additionally skilled impression. Gold mining polluted the Wanipigow River, the supply of consuming water for the Hole Water First Nation. Roughly 90 hectares of trapping grounds have been misplaced because of a tailings spill. In fact, the brand new reserve websites have been positioned on what, on the time, was thought-about unusable land. Now, a lot of that very same land is being prospected for transition minerals.
Useful resource exploitation is just not new to Hole Water First Nation, however the Canadian Premium Sand Mine is likely one of the first instances that Chief and Council waived treaty rights to a group trapline underneath the auspices of the Indian Act permitting a wealthy biodiverse space to be explored by Canadian Premium Sand with out group consent or session. Apparently, the group trapline doesn’t require group session. These assumptions have but to be examined in court docket.
On a freezing February night time in 2019, Camp Morningstar erected a tipi on their sacred lands on the mainland throughout from Black Island when Canadian Premium Sand began to maneuver huge equipment onto the proposed silica sand web site subsequent to 3 Indigenous communities. Members of Hole Water First Nation and two different communities have been outraged that their territory had been signed away by an “Indian Act Chief” in relative secrecy with no session.
The proposed frack sand mine didn’t proceed, however Canadian Premium Sand submitted a Discover of Alteration (NOA) to as a substitute mine for photo voltaic glass sand, greenwashing the unique frack sand venture. For 5 years, Camp Morningstar Land Protectors have advocated for transparency, significant session, and an overhaul of the Manitoba Environmental Act to enhance the environmental evaluation course of and be inclusive and aware of Indigenous Peoples as promised by the Canadian authorities’s adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Supply: Authorities of Manitoba.
Our first trace that significant session could be elusive started when the Chief and Band of Hole Water First Nation signed the Participation Settlement with out consulting Band members as a result of the Indian Act doesn’t require Free, Prior and Knowledgeable Consent. The Chief and Band Council consented to an preliminary cost of $250,000 from Canadian Premium Sand as a result of the Hole Water Band had a money move disaster, and the Band believed the venture could be like a a lot smaller and in another way mined deserted silica mine on Black Island. The shortage of significant session within the regulatory course of is the very definition of environmental racism and the actual fact the proposed mine was nothing just like the deserted Black Island mine, meant that the Chief was not adequately consulted by the corporate and didn’t perceive the total implications of what he was signing.
From that time on, the failure of due course of continued. The particular person chosen to implement the Part 35 Session course of to uphold the “Honour of the Crown” was a former Hole Water Band counselor who held the mining portfolio throughout his tenure and signed the unique Memorandum of Understanding with Canadian Premium Sand. Written letters of objection to the Crown didn’t even obtain a reply.
The environmental evaluate course of went on to approve an entire new glass sand mine as a “minor Discover of Alteration,” silencing First Nations by denying public conferences or Part 35 Consultations on the whim of a Ministerial Directive by a former authorities. There have been three utterly completely different air high quality research supplied over the 5 years. We do not know why the third and ultimate evaluation by the Technical Advisory Committee as a result of there isn’t any requirement to publish findings publicly, regardless of critical errors within the first research. Due to this fact, group members who reside inside meters of the mine stay in a state of excessive anxiousness in regards to the absence of knowledge and the long run well being of their households. The roads stay lethal and the newly launched retention ponds, groundwater use, and acid drainage haven’t gone by the same old public scrutiny. We now have by no means been allowed to see the hydrogeological report. Hole Water First Nation has educated engineers and environmental biologists. They have been by no means included.
Reconciliation has a protracted method to go relating to the connection between the extractive useful resource business and First Nations in Canada. Now that transition minerals are being actively prospected and explored within the huge boreal forests of Treaty 5, it’s excessive time to insist on the implementation of Free, Prior and Knowledgeable Consent. Camp Morningstar will stay lively advocates for Treaty 5 territory.
—MJ McCarron is the Schooling Outreach Coordinator for Camp Morningstar.
