This story was originally published on Monday, June 2, 2025.
About 70 people gathered before MPP Vic Fedeli’s office on North Bay’s Main Street today to protest the province’s proposed Bill 5. Nipissing First Nation (NFN) organized the event.
Bill 5, the Unleashing Our Economy Act, is designed to fast-track economic development and holds many amendments to the Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. NFN is concerned that this expedited process will reduce opportunities for consultation between the province and First Nations.
“Bill 5 is new legislation that could harm our land, weaken environmental protections, and ignore our Treaty rights. It was created without proper consultation with Indigenous peoples. This is not right and we must speak out,” NFN explained in a release.
The demonstration was part of a larger day of protest, as many First Nations throughout the province took part.
See: Ontario PCs to limit debate on controversial Bill 5, among other legislation
NFN’s Chief, Cathy Stevens, attended a rally against the Bill at Queen’s Park, so she could not attend the local protest. In a statement, Chief Stevens said, “The changes proposed in Bill 5 threaten not only our rights but our identity.”
The chief continued, “The land holds the stories of our ancestors, reaching back over 13,000 years. This Bill does not protect Ontario. It protects profit. If Ontario truly values its past and its future, it must remove these exemptions and work with First Nations to protect what cannot be replaced.”
Vic Fedeli, the Minister of Economic Development, was not at his North Bay office this morning. However, in an email to BayToday, Fedeli emphasized the importance of Bill 5 to keep Ontario competitive.
He wrote, “Now more than ever, it is important for Ontario to remain competitive in the global race to attract and maintain job-creating investments. If projects are going to take ten years to get shovels in the ground, Ontario will lose out on billions of dollars of new investment to other jurisdictions.”
Fedeli continued, “The proposed legislation is about unlocking Ontario’s true economic potential, not overriding Indigenous rights, environmental safeguards, or existing labour laws.”
See: Ford government’s plan for ‘Indigenous-led’ zones under Bill 5 ‘too late,’ leaders say
Cameron Welch, the Director of Lands, Natural Resources, and Economic Development for NFN, is concerned that unlocking that economic potential will come at great cost to the environment, and relations between the province and First Nations.
Welch said, given the current climate with tariff threats from the US, “I’m concerned the provincial government is using some of that uncertainty and people’s anxiousness to really gut important safeguards in provincial legislation.”
“I wonder if they are using this [economic] uncertainty, and these difficult times to advance their own interests, at the expense of not only the environment but also the Treaty relationship,” Welch added.
For Welch, the danger of Bill 5 is that it creates special economic zones, “And within these zones, as we understand it, the safeguards in terms of calling for environmental review, and all of those pieces that go along with project approval, will be essentially removed.”
If those zones are created, “At what stage during that process does the consultation and accommodation of Indigenous rights come in? We’re concerned that this might strike at the very basis of the Treaty arrangement, where you have one side of the Treaty unilaterally declaring we’re going to go ahead with this project.”
Yvette Bellefeuille, an NFN councillor, agreed with Welch that the province is taking advantage of an opportunity. “They are overreaching. They’re not including consultations with First Nations in the development of this Bill, and it impacts them. A lot of the lands the Ontario Government is trying to grab is First Nation land.”
