Climate change has First Nations seeking justice as food security threatened

By Kelly Anne Smith

ANISHINABEK NATION TERRITORY— The Westaway Law Group is challenging government policy that threatens food security for First Nations.

Details were outlined in the virtual presentation Climate Change and Food Security: A multi-region vulnerability assessment for adaptation and resilience-building using traditional knowledge during the virtual 6th annual Anishinabek Nation Lands, Resources and Economic Development Forum: Kina-Gego-Naabadosin— Everything is Connected on February 16.

Westaway Law Group legal counsel Brett Campeau informed that interviews have taken place with knowledge holders who are Elders of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg in the Northern Superior Region and Garden River First Nation and Wahnapitae First Nation in the Lake Huron Region.

Campeau says in the past decades there has been an increase in temperatures with a more pronounced warming in the more northern parts of the country.

“Climate change is already having significant impacts on lands and waters across Canada. That is having important consequences on food security. We also know these climate change impacts will combine with those from other human activities, things like resource development including forestry and mining, hydro-electric development, and oil and gas development.”

Campeau informs there are cumulative effects on plants and wildlife, which hamper the ability of First Nations people to harvest wild foods subsequently impacting food security. Predictability of the weather and environment hinders ability to hunt and engage in traditional activities on the land.

Cynthia Westaway, Director of Westaway Law Group, talked of focusing on getting governments, the Crown in Ontario and Canada and the courts to understand cumulative impacts.

“If you go and do one legal case on the impact of a tailings pond or a separate legal case on the impact of mining or forestry clear-cutting, the impacts on the waters of herbicide spraying — each of those cases is very expensive, and of course, the First Nations are living in that environment and impacted by all of it,” she says. “So how can we change the law and change the policies of the Crown to better recognize that they have to have tools to look at it more globally and the impact in the entire region?”

The Westaway Law Group is currently working with Chapleau Cree First Nation, Missanabie Cree First Nation, and Brunswick House First Nation on a forestry cumulative impacts in a Treaty 9 case. Westaway says the treaty provides for wellness and the Crown must have a plan to assess cumulative impacts.

“They just can’t have legislation and regulation that don’t protect lands and waters,” she says. “The good news is this case, Blueberry River, that came out of BC, Yahey v British Columbia…The court found (in June, 2021) that the province had infringed their Treaty 8 obligations and the rights of the First Nation because the cumulative impact had diminished their capacity to exercise their rights…We finally have a court that is telling the Crown that they have to pay attention to these impacts in the whole region because they are significantly impacting First Nations to a greater extent.”

BC has set aside $65 million to fund healing the land, support First Nation stewardship and to protect Indigenous ways of life.

“You are going to see a lot of action like this across Canada now,” says Westaway. “Clearly this has to happen in Ontario… Clearly the Treaty Nations need to be respected and heard on things like herbicides spraying and cumulative impacts.”

During the presentation, Brett Campeau talked of Elders in the Northern Superior Region observing climate change impacts.

An Elder of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg said, “[We] cannot follow our teachings and use the whole animal because organs seem to be contaminated.”

A Fort William First Nation Elder exclaimed, “[Climate change] makes the land ill and us ill.”

In the Southeast Region, Curve Lake First Nation has noticed a loss of ice fishing and ice roads with warmer temperatures while Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation has noticed that creeks have dried, there are fewer cold water fish, and the timing of the seasons are changed.

The Southwest Region is exposed to significant industrial activity. Nobody eats the fish and there is concern about eating rabbits because of industrial pollution.

Westaway says environmental monitoring and floodplain mapping are strategies to strengthen food security as well as adapting and building resilience through community gardens, greenhouse projects, community butchers and freezers, and also by sharing traditional knowledge and building on-the-land and water and ice skills.

She calls on the government to collaborate various officials to recognize regional cumulative impacts.

“The leadership of the First Nations does much, much better – always looking at interconnectedness. When we try to go to the Crown to speak, they say, ‘That’s not my mandate. We have to call eight other people.’ And they (the government) don’t even know who the eight other people to call. So, we’ve started insisting there are high-level relationship tables that will sit down and you bring to us, all the different eight people that you think have the expertise to add-in. In the meantime, think about reorganizing your whole structure to focus on the interconnectedness.”