I can say I was here in May 2019, and I remember some of the First Nations from the riding of Kiiwetinoong—and not only that, the Ring of Fire—I remember sitting and listening to the Premier: “We will not move forward without your consent.” But he later understood that “free, prior and informed consent” is a term that addresses the issues, how we’re going to move forward.

I think the approach where they continue to—this government actually ripped up the regional framework agreement, where the nine First Nations in the Ring of Fire were working together. Now there are only two. I think with that, again, that will not happen, because you have to work with people. It’s a divide-and-conquer approach, and without the proper consultation, I believe the Ring of Fire will not move forward.

I talked about some of the impacts of intergenerational trauma, some of the issues that we faced a long time ago, the long-term impacts. But I think one of the things, when we talk about programming, like healing programs, healing centres—that would go a long way to start the process of healing for people. People are going through that on a daily basis and they need to be able to find a way to come to terms with whatever that they are dealing with, whether it’s a suicide attempt, whether it’s intergenerational trauma. Because it’s not the kids that suffer, it’s the families that we need to deal with—we need to be able to have that holistic healing approach.

I think it’s important to be able to address the issues that are in the north. The issues are very deep-rooted, and incremental funding, incremental change makes it look as if you’re doing something without really doing anything. What incremental change, what incremental funding does is it perpetuates the crisis in our communities. I think we need to have significant resources to be able to go there. We need to be able to provide that healing, housing, the high schools. We need proper runways and there is the cost of living as well.

Minister of Mines, I was listening to your presentation, listening to your comments. When we talk about free, prior and informed consent, how much resources have you put to Nibinamik First Nation?