Clarence Fisher was perplexed when First Nations protesters temporarily blocked access to the Lalor mine in early 2013.
“You know, I’m not quite clear how coming to one municipality is solving problems in your own place,” Fisher, the mayor of nearby Snow Lake, told CBC at the time.
The answer, at least in the view of the 30 or so protesters from Pukatawagan’s Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, was pretty straightforward.
MCCN believes that Lalor is operating illegally on its territory and that the band is entitled to benefits from the hugely profitable Hudbay operation.
If it takes a blockade in the dead of winter to get that message across, then that is what MCCN, rightly or wrongly, is willing to do.
Or at least was willing to do. Following two blockades at Lalor, on Jan. 28 and March 5 of 2013, MCCN was ordered by court injunction to stay off Hudbay property.
That may have ground the blockades to a halt, but it didn’t silence MCCN Chief Arlen Dumas.
Dumas continued to maintain that Lalor and the Reed mine co-owned by Hudbay are in breach of laws the Manitoba government is unwilling to enforce.
As much as I have written about Dumas, I have never actually spoken to the man. I have left messages at his office, even on his cell phone, but not once have we connected.
A source who does know Dumas had informed me that he is intelligent, patient and keenly aware of treaty law.
Real audience?
Many months ago, my source speculated that the real audience for MCCN’s protests against Hudbay was not the company or even the Manitoba government, but ultimately the Supreme Court of Canada.
It’s not that Dumas intended to take this dispute to Canada’s high court himself, I was told, but that he wanted to position his band to benefit from any future rulings on Aboriginal land rights.
I wasn’t sure what to think of that theory, but when I picked up a recent edition of the Winnipeg Free Press, I was quite intrigued to say the least.
One of the top stories told of a historic Supreme Court ruling that granted Aboriginal title to a vast tract of land in BC to that province’s Tsilhqot’in First Nation.
An accompanying article gave Dumas’s reaction to the news: “This landmark decision only bolsters what we’ve been saying.”
Dumas also announced that MCCN would again issue self-styled “stop-work orders” for the Lalor and Reed mines. Similar orders given to Hudbay in 2013 were ignored by both the company and the province.
It’s unclear what repercussions, if any, the Tsilhqot’in ruling will have in northern Manitoba. Certainly no one I’ve talked to expects the Supreme Court to start handing out land like candy to any First Nation involved in a territorial quarrel.
But at the very least, the Tsilhqot’in case is a stern reminder that First Nations land disputes are not going away – not in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake region and not across the country.
I have always believed that MCCN’s beef was never really with Hudbay, but with the Manitoba government that approves mineral projects in our province.
It is therefore up to the Manitoba government to give First Nations land disputes – particularly those involving resources that are the lifeblood of this region – the vital attention they deserve.
As a starting point, the province has struck the Mining Advisory Council to bring First Nations, industry and government together to discuss mutual concerns.
But it’s clear from Dumas’s recent comments that the council is no cure-all, that not all First Nations have faith in this process to resolve their grievances.
What’s also evident is that as long as we have bands like MCCN issuing stop-work orders, mining companies may be deterred from doing business in northern Manitoba.
And no one, including First Nations, stands to benefit from that.
