The Far North Act in Ontario, Canada: a sons of the soil conflict in the making?

ABSTRACT

In 2010, the Government of Ontario, Canada passed the controversial Far North Act. The Act purportedly aims to promote land use planning and sustainable development while recognising Aboriginal and Treaty rights. There are, however, early warning signs that the Act could be a breeding ground for future conflict between Indigenous peoples and other stakeholder groups. This article adopts a ‘sons of the soil’ conceptual framework to explore the mechanisms that could give rise to the escalation of Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous conflict. The findings provide important insights for theorising the contentious politics around land and territory in diverse settler-colonial contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Canada
• conflict
• contentious politics
• indigenous peoples
• migrants
• natural resource governance
• Ontario
• settlers
• sons of the soil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. On the nature and significance of these ‘flashpoint events’ involving Indigenous groups in Canada opposed to state and private-led economic development initiatives, see Russell (2010), Simpson and Ladner (2010) and Morden (2013).

2. SoS conflicts are often referred to as ‘conflicts of autochthony’. Though similar in their logic, the latter term is often used to describe cases from sub-Saharan Africa (cf. Bøås & Dunn, 2013). See Gausset, Kenrick, and Gibb (2011) for a discussion on the distinction between ‘indigeneity’ and ‘autochthony’.

3. The gendered dimensions of this term are problematic (cf. Côté & Huang, 2017). For the sake of conceptual coherency, we use the term ‘sons’ of the soil. However, we acknowledge the need to recognise and problematise this term.

4. See Newman (2014a) for a comprehensive analysis on the doctrine of the duty to consult.

5. Gardner, Tsuji, McCarthy, Whitelaw, and Tsuji (2012) provide a thorough critique of the nature of consultation surrounding the development of Bill 191.

6. Simpson and Ladner (2010) offer a wide-ranging anthology of works on the enduring implications of the ‘Oka crisis’ of 1990.

7. The Canadian government established a truth and reconciliation commission in 2008 to shed light on the historical injustices of the country’s Indian Residential School system. The commission’s work culminated in the publication of numerous reports in 2015, identifying 94 ‘calls to action’ to promote meaningful reconciliation (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, 2017).