Megaproject no quick fix for native issues, says Rae
Job training, education key to end poverty in northern Ontario
Former Liberal leader Bob Rae says natural resource projects such as Ontario’s massive Ring of Fire aren’t a “magic bullet” to eliminate poverty in remote aboriginal communities.
Rae told a Toronto conference on Saturday that several approaches are needed — including jobs training, education and governance — to help the resource-rich but underdeveloped areas raise themselves up. “If you want to see conditions of real underdevelopment, and see what the impact is on people and families, on children and on adults, you do not have to go very far,” he told the crowd.
The former MP recounted his experiences on a trip to northern Ontario that ended Friday. It included a visit to the Marten Falls First Nation, where, Rae said, roughly 300 people live with intermittent electricity, $8 cartons of milk and no Internet access.
Marten Falls lies within the 5,000square-kilometre boundary of the Ring of Fire, a mining project that the Ontario and federal governments hope will attract billions of dollars in private investment.
But Rae said money from the massive proposed mineral project can’t be counted on to fix local woes.
“The way this situation is now described in the north is to say, ‘We have the magic bullet, it’s called the Ring of Fire,’ ” Rae said. “But everyone has to understand that this is not the magic solution to pov- erty, because you’ve got to get people ready for jobs and for work. You’ve got to create the conditions under which people are able to participate in the workforce.”
Rae stepped down from federal politics this year and is acting as chief negotiator for Matawa First Nations Tribal Council in talks with the province over Ring of Fire development. Marten Falls is one of the nine communities in the council.
The northern Ontario communities he’s visited are not against the Ring of Fire plan but are worried about its negative effects, Rae said.