First Nation spearheads legal personhood recognition of Rice Lake

By Sam Laskaris

ALDERVILLE FIRST NATION – Alderville First Nation Chief Taynar Simpson believes a recent historic resolution adopted by his own First Nation could potentially set the standard for many others to follow suit.

During its Nov. 17 council meeting, Alderville First Nation passed a resolution recognizing legal personhood for nearby Rice Lake.

Chief Simpson attended the meeting remotely as he was in Belem, Brazil. He was invited to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also simply dubbed COP30.

Chief Simpson was a panellist at a conference session titled, Granting Rights To Nature: A Solution For Climate Action. He primarily spoke about the Rice Lake resolution spearheaded by his First Nation.

“It’s been over two years in the making to get to this point,” he said. “There’s been a lot of working with the stakeholders, reaching out to neighbouring municipalities, townships, counties, as well as the six other Williams Treaties First Nations.”

Chief Simpson said there was overwhelming support to bring forth a Rice Lake legal personhood motion at his council’s recent meeting.

“We wanted to make sure that we had good standing to be able to push this resolution forward,” he said. “So, we were finally at a place where we felt like we had enough support from all of the stakeholders. And we also were able to put together our resolution, which was our largest Band Council Resolution in history coming in out about 15 pages.”

Chief Simpson said the resolution is significant not only for the lake, but also for those who reside alongside it.

“Basically, we will be setting up a guardians council that will be the representative and the voice of the lake once it’s fully set up,” he said. “And that’s going to be your townships, municipalities, conservation groups, anglers, hunters, harvesters – anyone that has a say in Rice Lake will have a seat at that guardians council. And that will be basically like how a child has a guardian to look after them legally. We would be the guardians for the lake.”

Rice Lake is the first body of water to be granted legal personhood in Ontario.

Quebec’s Magpie River had set the precedent in the country as it was granted legal personhood in 2021.

Chief Simpson said he was not surprised proceedings to get Rice Lake recognized took two years.

“Actually, the opposite,” he said. “I was expecting it to take much longer. When I first started down this path, it seemed like climbing Mount Everest. And I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get to the point where it was accomplished. But things just all fell in place as they were supposed to and we were able to get this resolution, to get the allies together.”

Chief Simpson believes it might not be much longer before others follow suit and other bodies of water are recognized in a similar fashion.

“There’s already other initiatives on the go right now,” he said. “The rights of nature and legal personality is a novel idea. And it’s gaining steam. Ultimately, the goal would be every single body of water or natural body would achieve this status.”

The Canadian-based International Observatory for the Rights of Nature assisted Alderville First Nation representatives with the drafting of their Rice Lake resolution.

“They’ve been an excellent resource for this,” Chief Simpson said. “There’s no way we could’ve done this without them.”

The group also helped Chief Simpson earn an invitation to speak at COP30.

His conference panel consisted of a 45-minute panel presentation followed by a Q and A segment. An ensuing 25-minute press conference was also staged, announcing Alderville First Nation’s Rice Lake resolution, the day before.

“It was just like a perfect storm that it worked out that way,” Chief Simpson said of the Rice Lake news he was fortunate to announce while he was at the Brazil conference.