One of the first states in northwest Ontario to demand a 100-square-mile mining halt to designate a protected area for spiritual practice.
Ginogaming first nation He will appear in Toronto’s Supreme Court on June 1 to ban prospector Michael Maalouf from operating in what he considers a “sacred and vital cultural area” within the community’s traditional area.
Michael Maalouf, president of a mining and exploration company that employs four people.
Ginogaming is located adjacent to the town of Longlac, 300 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay.
First Nation is also trying to prevent the county government from issuing a search permit to another exploration company managed by William Kerr.
Want to read more business stories in the North? Register to get our latest news.
In a press release issued on May 31, Ginoogaming said it had attempted to avoid legal action by writing letters to Premier Doug Ford and Greg Rickford, Secretary of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, proposing temporary and long-term protection for the area.
The First Nation newspaper said its messages were not heard.
The First Nation is represented by Kate Kimpton of Olthuis Kleer Townsend LLP, who said Ginoogaming has the right to protect sacred areas that cannot be “desecrated by industrial and operational development”.
Ontario tries to classify every cemetery or other sacred place as a point on the map. It’s a good idea to arrange all around and inside their feet. We are committed to protecting the entire 100-square-mile area. “While this issue remains unresolved, we are submitting this request for a court order so that, in the meantime, the district and its assets will not be subject to irreparable damage from mineral extraction.”
Sign up for Sudbury Mining Solutions’ weekly newsletter here.
“We are committed to respecting our sacred and ancestral identity as a right,” Sherry Taylor, Vice President of Ginogaming, said in a statement.
Our harvest rights cannot be limited to land only. We have always been more. We are a nation, and not all of our rights to continue as a privileged treaty-signing nation have been eliminated. Now is the time for courts to recognize that indigenous peoples are not two-dimensional. “
This small mining strip is part of the historic Geraldton Mining Camp, an area in northwestern Ontario that produced 3 million ounces of gold between 1934 and 1968. This area is considered unexplored by modern standards. The area’s last gold mine closed in 1968, but interest in the area was renewed with plans to build an open-air gold mine south of Geraldton on Highway 11.
