First Nations Partnerships Top list of priorities for Ontario government

By Kevin Vincent

It has been more than two decades since Placer Dome Canada negotiated a revenue-sharing agreement at the Musselwhite Gold Mine with nearby First Nations.

The man at the center of that agreement, Placer Dome’s President George Pirie, is Ontario’s Mines Minister today.

Minister Pirie, who also served as mayor of Timmins before being elected to the Ontario legislature, has a long history of working with First Nations communities and organizations.

Speaking at the Canadian Mining Expo in Timmins this summer, Pirie underlined the Ford government’s commitment to First Nations prosperity.

“At present, the province has eight agreements that span 41 communities across the north. Last week I was just at a conference in Cochrane with the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council. The last presentation, before I spoke, was the auditor. He was very pleased to announce a surplus. He said it’s the result of the revenue sharing agreements. The revenue sharing agreements is an enlightened piece of legislation. The revenues that would normally come to the province from the mining sector, and now it’s been expanded for forestry sector and the aggregate industry.”

Resource-sector revenue-sharing agreements allow 40 to 45 percent of provincial royalties to flow back into the communities themselves.

“This is a very important point because those payments enrich the communities directly,” said Pirie. Those funds would have gener- ally gone into the general revenues associated with the running of the province.

“My ministry is responsible for administering that process. In fact, I just renewed the agreement for one year. It will be renewed a year from now. It will be expanded. And we probably will renew it again for another five-year period of time.”

Pirie says those are the type of partnerships the Ford government is interested in because it takes the money and puts the funds directly back into the communities.

“They benefit from the activities associated with the resources in their traditional territory. There’s no bureaucracy associated with that. The funds travel directly to the communities. They’re very similar to the revenue sharing agreements that we had developed when I worked with Placer Dome at Musselwhite. We developed those agreements in the 90s.”

Placer Dome changed the traditional MoU agreement to a revenue sharing agreement. “And I know communities like Kingfisher Lake, and this comes directly from MPP Sol Mamakwa, over $800,000 this year alone has come from Musselwhite. Those are funds that transform communities. They enrich the communities.’

Pirie also points to his time serving with Wahgoshig Resources. “At the time we left there, Wahgoshig First Nations, we had a surplus of $23 million. And what did they do with that? They built homes. The communities benefit directly.”

“Imagine how empowering that was and is. You don’t have to go back out to the federal government and get funds to upgrade your housing stock. And I’ll tell you, I haven’t been there for about probably seven years, but the houses that they were building were beautiful. And quite frankly, that’s a beautiful community. It’s that type of empowerment that these type of arrangements make, and give to the indigenous communities, and the First Nations communities. I endorse them a thousand percent.”

Another thing that happens when funds go back into First Nations communities is they start their own businesses. With Wahgoshig, it was a diamond-drilling corporation. They started off with one drill, I think they’re up to three drills right now - 100% owned.

Pirie spoke about a recent conversation he had with Chief Bruce Archibald of Taykwa Tagamou FN. “Before endorsing the development of their lands, the unemployment rate was 85%. Now it’s less than the national average. So, what happens? The communities and the people prosper as a result,” said Pirie.

In the northwest, Pirie has met with several chiefs that are in charge of the environmental assessment process associated with building the roads to the Ring of Fire will tell you they’re doing it to see their communities prosper.

“They want to see their children stay in the community. They want to see them finish their education in their community and they want to see their communities grow. And that’s what happens with partnerships. The communities thrive. They become healthy. They become vibrant. And that’s the exercise. And that’s the purpose of all of these revenue sharing agreements and partnerships. It’s to empower the First Nations people to do what they want to do with their money to develop their communities and to develop their people.”