It’s good to engage with my brother in the House. I completely agree, and I think the Minister of Mines would agree also, how important it is that we do proper Indigenous consultation—I don’t have that exact definition here in front of me.

I was wondering if the member could comment for a moment on how important it is that we share the wealth of the land with Indigenous peoples and how important it is that we work together for the long-term prosperity—not just for Ontario; indeed, for the entire world—with the resource extraction that we can do up north and what that could potentially do for the Indigenous territories in his riding.

It has been interesting listening to debate. I haven’t heard a lot of negatives from the opposition—other than the need for good consultation. I know we have a strong commitment from our minister in order to make sure that happens, and I understand those concerns completely.

When this came, we saw the opposition supporting this on a voice vote on second reading. Of course, it went to a full vote. I believe this legislation will be coming up for a vote, if not today, in the next couple of days.

I was wondering if I could ask the member from Algoma–Manitoulin, knowing the importance of the benefits that this can have for Indigenous peoples across the province of Ontario, if he will be voting in favour of the legislation when it comes for a vote.

It’s so good to hear the support from the member from Guelph on this bill. I’ve had those conversations with him for the last few years on how critical it is to expand the battery and electric vehicle market in Ontario and the necessity of the resources that we can source from Ontario for these.

I’m curious, though, and this is something that I think is a province-wide issue: When we’re having those conversations and discussions with Indigenous territories that are directly impacted by this, how far out should that net go? Is it just any Indigenous territory in the province of Ontario? Is it just directly those whose traditional lands are in that area?

I was just wondering if the member had any advice for us on exactly what that consultation should look like within that spirit of reconciliation.

In response to the remarks from the member from Guelph, one of the things that we heard during the committee hearings, both from Indigenous leaders and from the Ontario Mining Association, was that there’s a lack of a framework for not only consultation but how decisions are made. What we found probably most disappointing was that the government decided not to adopt motions to create that framework—so actually make a solid platform between governments, because now, often, it’s left up to mining companies, and they don’t want that either.

Could you comment on that?

I’m pleased to be able to stand today and speak to third reading of Bill 71 and the Mining Act. I just want to start by saying that I supported this act at second reading because I do think it’s critical that we extract our resources from the north for the prosperity of the north, and the prosperity of all in the north. Subsequent to voting in favour at the second reading, after the bill went through committee and through various things that have happened here, it’s very clear that the duty to consult was not met. The challenge with that is you can’t simply expropriate a piece of people’s land. It’s not that simple.

The process of consultation is not easy. We set up a process that was longer and more deliberative and included everyone and that was maybe not as fast as everybody would like. The challenge becomes that when you exclude some people, when you say to some people, “Your opinion, your voice, what you have to say doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter, and we’re not going to listen to you,” what does that do? First of all, probably about the worst thing you can do to an individual or a group of people is to say, “What you have to say?” or literally, “You don’t matter. You’re extinct. You’re not in the picture.”

How do you think people are going to react? What are they going to do? First of all, it’s not right. Second of all, they’re going to go to court. And this government’s record in court cases is not really that great. It’s 0 for something, but I don’t know if it’s 10 or 12 by now.

Interjections.

Well, maybe it’s not 0. I think you may have won one, but I’m not sure.

In all seriousness, here’s the problem with the court challenges. It’s not about winning or losing; it’s actually about what happens to the project you’re trying to do when you go to court and you’re not successful. That slows down even further your ability to get the project done.

So I’m kind of torn. There are good things in this bill that talk about development and the extraction of resources in the north for prosperity for all, but the duty to consult is not met. It’s a very clear duty, and it’s different from—like I say, it’s not like you’re trying to build an expressway somewhere and you’re going to expropriate somebody’s land. There’s a process by which we do that here in Ontario. There’s a totally different process and it has to do with the duty to consult. It’s nation to nation.

It makes it very hard to support a bill that has very supportable things in it. That’s the problem when you exclude people, when you say to a group of people or groups of people, “What’s happening on your land or around you doesn’t matter. We don’t need to listen to you. We don’t need to talk to you.” You’re picking winners and losers.

The end result of this is we’re not moving forward in the spirit of truth and reconciliation and what our duties are as a government. That’s not right. It also puts the projects that we want to move forward with at risk because of the legal jeopardy.

I think that that duty to consult gets confused with what we call consultations here in committee, which is, we can call them up in a couple of days and we sit down and listen to people, and then what we see happens—and it’s not just with this government; it’s with other governments that I’ve seen before and other governments in other provinces—is people come and say what they have to say, and we totally ignore them.

It’s different. It’s nation to nation. It’s about our relationship with the people who were here before us. It’s not easy, and sometimes it takes way longer than we all want it to. But if we don’t do it, we put the things that we’re trying to do together to make the north more prosperous—everyone in the north more prosperous—at risk.

I’m going to repeat this again: The process of consultation is different than the thing we do when we’re going to put a new park in, or Ontario Place—oh, wait, no; there was no consultation on Ontario Place, sorry.

The reality is, it’s established through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—which we’ve committed to—the process by which there is a duty to consult and the nature of those consultations. They take longer. They’re harder. That’s just the way it is, folks. If we want to build together, we have to respect that process.

Thank you for the question. You might want to take a look at the history of the file.