'Redundant and insufficient': Lawyer rips Lecce's Bill 5 fix

Salt in Indigenous wounds

Presented by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute

ABOVE THE FOLD

MINEFIELD 2.0 — Whatever amendments Energy Minister STEPHEN LECCE tables for hot-potato Bill 5 at today’s committee meeting, it probably won’t be enough to sate First Nations leaders.

That’s the upshot from my interview with ZACHARY DAVIS, an expert in Indigenous law and legal counsel for Nibinamik First Nation — one of the smallest Indigenous communities in the province — who says no amendment can paper over the Ford government’s failure to fulfill its duty to consult.

Highlights…

• “Frankly, that’s redundant and insufficient.”
  — Davis on the Ford government’s forthcoming amendment reaffirming the duty to consult First Nations

• “This bill creates a regime that is basically a void.”
  — Davis on the lack of clear procedures in Bill 5 for consultation or project approvals in Special Economic Zones

• “There is no ‘get out of jail free’ card.”
  — Davis on why the notwithstanding clause can’t shield the province from future legal c…