NORTHERN ONTARIO — Bill 72, Ontario’s Buy Ontario Act arrives wrapped in the warm language of resilience, its promise simple and seductive: keep supply chains close, keep dollars at home, keep Ontario strong. But in the North, where distance is a fact of life and economies grow along different fault lines, some hear a colder echo beneath the rhetoric.
The Anishnawbe Business Professional Association (ABPA) has filed a formal strategic review, warning that the Buy Ontario Act, 2025 risks systematically sidelining First Nations businesses. At issue are definitions that appear neutral on paper yet tilt the field toward southern, urban, non-Indigenous firms.
Employee thresholds, permanent headquarters requirements and corporate governance criteria may read like standard procurement language. In practice, the association argues, they fail to reflect the realities of Northern economies — seasonal workforces, community-based ownership models, and governance structures rooted in nationhood rather than corporate convention. They also sidestep the constitutionally distinct status of First Nations, flattening rights into checkboxes.
“The Buy Ontario Act in its current form is a tool of exclusion,” said ABPA president Jason Rasevych. “It was drafted with a southern-centric bias that fails to recognize the Indigenous economy as a massive driver of provincial growth.”
The stakes are not symbolic. Indigenous businesses contribute more than $30 billion annually to Canada’s GDP, with projections reaching $100 billion. In Thunder Bay alone, a January 2025 study found the Indigenous economy generates $1.55 billion in output and supports more than 3,000 jobs.
Yet procurement rules that fail to recognize Indigenous business structures risk accelerating what the ABPA calls “economic leakage,” allowing infrastructure dollars intended for Northern communities to flow south or out of province.
For municipalities already grappling with shrinking tax bases, labour shortages and youth out-migration, where those dollars land can determine whether a project builds local capacity.
The ABPA is not calling for the Act’s repeal. Its submission outlines specific reforms:
A mandatory five percent Indigenous procurement target; Bid Value Reduction mechanisms that weigh local impact, not just lowest bid; modernized definitions of “Ontario business” that include treaty lands within that definition; verification through the Chiefs of Ontario business registry; and integration of the ABPA’s Procurement Navigator Project with Supply Ontario.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) says it has not yet completed a technical analysis of how Bill 72 could affect Indigenous business eligibility—a gap that reflects both the speed of legislative change and the complexity of procurement law.
“To be totally candid, I don’t have insight into that technical question about Bill 72,” said Karen Nesbitt, AMO’s senior policy analyst, adding that the query raised by The Expositor is “a helpful flag for us to take away and look at.”
Her response reveals a quieter tension: municipalities may soon operate under procurement rules whose implications for Indigenous and other equity deserving suppliers are still coming into focus, even for the organizations tasked with guiding them. Ms.Nesbitt noted that AMO’s Indigenous Reconciliation Action Plan includes a pathway dedicated to economic reconciliation and provincial advocacy, and indicated the organization could elevate concerns as clearer evidence emerges.
While AMO has yet to issue a formal stance on Bill 72, Ms. Nesbitt outlined measures within its reconciliation plan aimed at strengthening Indigenous–municipal economic relationships.
These include: joint funding requests with First Nations to support relationship-building and shared economic planning; development of case studies and resources to help municipalities procure from Indigenous businesses; creation of an internal AMO Indigenous procurement policy; and guidance for municipalities on reconciliation in local economic development.
Ms. Nesbitt is careful in her wording, but the fault line she gestures toward runs deep. Procurement, she said, can be a pathway to “shared long-term prosperity,” yet municipalities need provincial clarity to walk that path with any confidence. When Queen’s Park moves without fulsome consultation, with Indigenous Nations, local governments are left to navigate relationships shaped not only by goodwill, but by the rigid architecture of the Indian Act — a statute that still dictates how First Nations can hold land, structure governance and enter into agreements.
The result is a persistent imbalance: municipalities are creatures of the province, while First Nations are rights-bearing governments whose authority predates Confederation. One answers upward through legislation; the other outward, in a nation-to-nation relationship that Canada has long promised and unevenly delivered. In that narrow space between delegated authority and inherent sovereignty, even well-intentioned procurement policies can strain local partnerships, forcing municipal staff to reconcile provincial rules with the legal and political reality that First Nations are not stakeholders, but Nations unto themselves.
Clarity is not a bureaucratic luxury, it is the groundwork for relationships that cannot afford to collapse under the weight of colonial law and for economic collaboration that honours jurisdiction rather than sidestepping it.
Candice Zhang, policy advisor with the Ontario Nonprofit Network, warns the Act could centralize procurement and increase compliance burdens in ways that sideline Indigenous and community-based suppliers.
“It [Bill 72] could harm existing relationships in the push for new infrastructure. Toronto, for example, has had a Community Benefits aAgreement that has created pathways for equity deserving businesses to get their foot in the door on large infrastructure projects, she said. “If left unchecked this new Bill threatens to kneecap these longstanding and hard-fought-for relationships.”
Ms. Zhang said municipalities may be required to use provincially approved vendor lists and meet extensive reporting requirements, with potential funding consequences for non-compliance—changes that could limit local social procurement policies.
“What we’re really worried about is whether policies that prioritize equity deserving-owned businesses will still be allowed,” she said.
At the heart of the debate lies a deceptively simple question: who counts as “Ontario”?
A multinational firm with a Toronto office may qualify under Buy Ontario, while a First Nations enterprise operating on its own territory may not. A southern contractor may meet every threshold, while a Northern supplier employing dozens in remote communities may fall short on paper.
The ABPA argues Indigenous procurement is not a carve-out but a practical strategy for regional resilience. First Nations businesses are already embedded in Northern supply chains, labour markets and infrastructure projects. Recognizing that reality, the association says, would keep public spending circulating in the communities it is meant to serve.
As regulations for Buy Ontario take shape, the province faces a choice: entrench existing procurement patterns — or redefine “local” to include the Indigenous economies that have always been here.
Recent legislation — both federal and provincial — appears to trace a trajectory that preferences centralized decision making in land use and development. The province of Ontario’s use of Ministers Zoning Orders has come into criticism for overriding municipal processes and creating the appearance of preferential treatment.
That same logic—override local autonomy in the name of economic growth—is what critics fear could shape procurement under the Buy Ontario framework.
In the North, roads are not just asphalt. They are treaty corridors.
Schools are not just buildings. They are jurisdictional statements.
Procurement is not just purchasing. It is power.
If governments truly intend to build Ontario, they must decide who gets to hold the hammer.
