Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation Chief urges collaborative First Nations efforts

By Sam Laskaris

SCUGOG ISLAND FIRST NATION – Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation Chief Kelly LaRocca believes there is strength in numbers.

That’s why she is doing her best to get other First Nations to work together to achieve collective goals.

During a recent Anishinabek Nation Southeast Regional Chiefs meeting, Chief LaRocca was invited to do a presentation on energy projects in general, with a focus on Ontario Power Generation (OPG)-related projects.

Chief LaRocca provided details that in the southeastern Ontario energy corridor, there is a proposed $62 billion spend on various projects.

“That’s quite significant,” Chief LaRocca said. “Now, obviously, that is not something we’re claiming we’re fully owed or entitled to. But we can see the amount of effort and planned spend that’s going to be happening in that area because we’re trying our best to map it out ahead of time…We can tell from our consultation notices when we map them out, where certain things are being proposed. And so, from piecing it all together and doing a bit of sleuthing really, we can tell with fairly good accuracy where things are being thought of in terms of development.”

As a result, Chief LaRocca believes First Nations in the area should not only be exploring potential opportunities how they can benefit, but also ways to join forces with other First Nations for collaborative efforts.

To a degree, that is already being done.

“We’ve been working together trying, for example, to understand the Alto high-speed, high- frequency rail project and what that would mean for our treaty territories and our communities and what kind of cumulative effects and impacts that would have on our lands,” she said of the proposed train project, which would run from Toronto to Quebec City. “And we’re just trying to share any information we can because in that particular project, as an example, the level of consultation hasn’t been very great…And so, I think it really bodes well for the First Nations to share our collective knowledge as First Nations but also collective knowledge in terms of how we piece together what these proponent companies are seeking to do.”

Chief LaRocca also said working with other First Nations can at times have its challenges.

“As any collective First Nations endeavour, we have our challenges,” she said. “And we don’t always agree 100 per cent of the time on 100 per cent of the issues. But we do think it makes sense to come together as collectives because I think together, we’re a lot stronger and have a lot more influence and power on what’s going on around us.”

Chief LaRocca said various meetings among First Nations leadership do take place.

“It just depends contextually on the given project that we’re seeking to do due diligence about or being approached about,” she said. “But on OPG matters, we meet quite frequently and have been for quite some time.”

Other projects also require attention.

“Certainly, we’re looking at the impacts and are very concerned about what the environmental and cultural impacts that new nuclear at Wesleyville will pose to the communities,” Chief LaRocca added. “And of course, Darlington and Pickering refurbishment is long since proposed as major projects. And they’re being worked on currently. And we’re just trying to understand the impacts from those refurb projects.”

Chief LaRocca also said First Nations leaders are also trying to determine the impacts of the OPG small nuclear reactors that are not only being proposed but also underway.

“We’re trying to come together for long-term relationships agreements with OPG we hope because they operate in our backyard and have been operating in our backyard for 50 plus years,” she said. “And so now that the Williams Treaties First Nations Final Settlement Agreement has come to fruition, OPG is getting very used to the fact that they need to accept and support the fact that we are valuable community partners to them and that they are operating in our territory and need to respect our needs and our aspirations.”

Chief LaRocca also said she does not want to make it seem that Mississaugas of Scugog Island is the only First Nation taking the lead on group projects.

“I think we’re all taking active interest in our own ways to try and ready ourselves,” she said.

For example, she said Curve Lake and Alderville First Nations are viewed as archaeological leaders.

“In terms of Scugog, we’ve been, I think, a little farther ahead, perhaps arguably, in getting our economic development corporations off the ground and becoming quite active,” she added. “But that’s not to say that the other communities haven’t been very active in their own respective rights as far as economic development is concerned…We’ve grown out our consultation team quite quickly at Scugog. And in that sense, I think we’ve had a really solid amount of bandwidth in terms of being able to respond to the onslaught of major projects that are coming our way in this area.”