Ramon Kataquapit says too often he’s experienced Indigenous youth being excluded from rooms full of powerful people who are deciding their futures.
That’s why this past year, Kataquapit founded the Okiniwak Indigenous youth movement and led rallies and workshops across Ontario challenging Bill 5, officially called the Protect Ontario By Unleashing Our Economy Act. The provincial law creates “special economic zones” where the government can exempt companies from having to follow certain rules.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has touted the law as an economic salve for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war and threats to Canada’s sovereignty. He has emphasized the Ring of Fire, a vast area of mineral deposits on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario, as ripe for exploitation under these new powers.
But Kataquapit, a member of Attawapiskat First Nation who also serves on the Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Oshkaatisak Council and the Chiefs of Ontario’s Youth Council, says the law threatens his way of life, the spirit of the land and “our very futures” that rely on the James Bay Lowlands for physical, mental and spiritual health.
Michel Koostachin, left, founder of Friends of the Attawapiskat River, and Ramon Kataquapit, founder of the Okiniwak Indigenous youth movement. Photos: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal; Supplied by Eleven North Visuals
The Ring of Fire overlaps a large, ecologically sensitive area of peatlands, or muskeg. This wetland system is a giant carbon sink, storing an estimated 35 billion tonnes of carbon, as well as a filtration system cleaning the water flowing through it and a critical habitat for migratory birds and wildlife like caribou. For the Omushkego Cree, their lives depend on the life-giving properties of water, which supports their food, medicines and shelter.
Kataquapit is hoping a court will let him and Michel Koostachin, the founder of Friends of the Attawapiskat River, an Indigenous group dedicated to protecting the waters and people downstream of the Ring of Fire, bring their distinct perspectives to an ongoing case brought by nine First Nations challenging the law.
Yesterday, they submitted materials seeking leave to intervene in the court challenge filed in July in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which asks for Bill 5 to be found unconstitutional.
The litigation also targets certain parts of the federal Building Canada Act, a law that allows Ottawa to declare projects in the “national interest” where they can be pre-approved for certain legal requirements. Prime Minister Mark Carney has also framed the national legislation as a response to a “crisis” provoked by Trump’s threats to the Canadian economy.
The nine First Nations behind the court challenge want an injunction to stop the two governments from using the powers of those laws, which they argued in a court filing “represent a clear and present danger” to their self-determination rights to ways of life on their territories, and violate the Crown’s obligation to act honourably.
Bill 5, Bill C-5 and the court case brought forward by a group of First Nations
While both Bill 5 and the Building Canada Act, which was part of Bill C-5, allow for First Nations consultation in designating a national interest project or a special economic zone, this is a “smoke and mirrors trick,” the First Nations said, “deflecting attention from all the other ways the laws necessarily diminish the ability of First Nations to engage on the regimes’ broader consequences.”
That’s because Indigenous communities would normally be consulted and accommodated on a much wider range of approvals or assessments required for projects that aren’t being given special designation under the laws, they said.
The offices of federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser and Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey did not return requests for comment about the litigation or the proposed intervenors.
If their application for intervenor status is accepted, Kataquapit and Koostachin would be considered “friends of the court,” meaning they would bring their land-based knowledge and lived experience as grassroots community leaders to the proceedings, their legal counsel, Kerrie Blaise, said.
Blaise, the founder of the nonprofit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence, or LAND, told The Narwhal she’s doing the work pro bono and had to find donors and partners to help fundraise.
Nine First Nations want an injunction to stop Ontario and Canada from putting some powers under their fast-tracking laws, Bill 5 and Bill C-5, into action. Photo: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal
“Even just from a logistical standpoint, it’s very difficult to get to court. To get a lawyer, to afford a lawyer to do this type of work is very difficult,” she said. “It is very unprecedented, this is very unique to have these individuals in a setting like this.”
Koostachin, who provides wellness services on mental health, addictions and grief in northern Ontario communities, said the court case raises key questions around whether the principles behind reconciliation and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are being applied properly.
He said Indigenous communities have distrusted the government for decades since the creation of the “racist” Indian Act in 1876 and the 1905 signing of Treaty 9 with Anishinaabe and Omushkego Cree, which has been questioned over its legitimacy.
“They call it the Ring of Fire, but to us, it’s the Breathing Lands. For them, they see profit. For us, we see the air of Canada, the air of Ontario, the air of ourselves, because we come from that land, we’re the artwork of that land, and for us, that’s our lives,” Kataquapit said in an interview.
“For them, it’s just something that they can use to combat Donald Trump and his tariffs, and this war that he has with Canada. But Canada has to take something from somewhere to respond. What are they going to take? That’s why they’re going to take from us.”
