Platinex

MiningWatch Canada is very pleased with yesterday’s announcement from the Government of Ontario regarding a resolution to the three-year stand off between the community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug ("KI") and Toronto-based exploration company Platinex.

[Joint news release with over 30 groups and organizations] In an Open Letter to the Premier, a wide range of social justice organizations, faith groups and environmental groups express their deep concern that the Mining Act in Ontario is taking precedence over human rights and ecological concerns. Today, six members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation in northern Ontario were sentenced for contempt charges related to their peaceful opposition to drilling for platinum on their traditional lands in the Boreal Forest. A few weeks earlier, Bob Lovelace, a university professor and spokesperson for the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, was sentenced to six months detention and fined $25,000, for opposition to uranium exploration on land subject to a longstanding, unresolved land claim in Eastern Ontario. In addition, the community was fined $10,000 and Chief Paula Sherman $15,000. Other leaders of the uranium exploration protest including the neighbouring Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation are being sentenced this week. Throughout the uranium exploration protest, private property owners have also been fighting exploration, and have organized into the Community Coalition against Mining Uranium (CCAMU). CCAMU and others also support the struggle of the Algonquins.

(Thunder Bay, ON) Spreading disputes between First Nations and mining companies may lead to jail time for Aboriginal leaders in northern Ontario pending the outcome of an Ontario Superior Court of Justice appearance today. Chief Donnie Morris and other members of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), an Aboriginal community in the Boreal Forest of Ontario, may be jailed for refusing to comply with an October,2007 court ruling that allows Platinex Inc., a Toronto-based mineral exploration company, to begin drilling on KI traditional lands without protest or obstruction.

[News release] Ontario should amend the Mining Act to provide for consultation with First Nations when granting mining claims and leases and stop treating public lands as freely open to mineral exploration, according to Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner, Gordon Miller.

Speech made by John Cutfeet on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007, as part of a Roundtable on “the Duty to consult aboriginal peoples and Ontario's Mining Act” at the Canadian Law and Society Association meetings at the Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP Aboriginal Legal Issues e-Newsletter by Scott Kerwin, reproduced with permission.

MiningWatch Canada, Forest Ethics, the Rainforest Action Network, and the Natural Resources Defense Council have asked the Ontario Securities Commission to investigate whether and to what extent the activities of Platinex breached disclosure requirements under Ontario's securities legislation, following comments from Ontario's Superior Court on the company's conduct in the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug matter.

[News release from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug] In the absence of adequate consultation, Justice G. P. Smith, on Friday, July 28, ruled against Platinex continuing its exploration activities on Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug traditional lands at this time. “Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug are excited and pleased that we have been heard,” John Cutfeet, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug councillor and spokesperson for the lawsuit, says. “This land was given to us by the Creator; it is our past, present and future. Now the Ontario Superior Court has indicated it understood our spiritual, physical, emotional and mental dependence on the land when Justice Smith said, ‘The land is the very essence of their being. It is their very heart and soul.’”