Latest news with #ProtectOntariobyUnleashingourEconomyAct
Global News
4 days ago
- Business
- Global News
Ford considering Hwy. 401 tunnel as special economic zone where laws could be bypassed
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is indicating that Highway 401 could be designated as a special economic zone, allowing the province to fast-track its plans to construct a transit and traffic tunnel beneath it, while sidestepping a raft of environmental and municipal laws. The province is currently in the process of passing Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, legislation it introduced to speed up mining projects in the north. Part of the legislation allows for the creation of special economic zones, areas where cabinet will be able to suspend provincial and municipal laws for certain projects. The projects that would qualify for the wide-ranging powers were not made public when the bill was tabled. On Friday, Ford suggested that a list of priority plans he sent to Prime Minister Mark Carney at the beginning of the month would all get the exception status. Story continues below advertisement Those projects are: developing the resource-rich Ring of Fire in Thunder Bay; expanding Ontario's nuclear power generating stations; building a deep-sea port in James Bay; massive expansion to the GO Train system; and building a tunnelled expressway under Highway 401. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'Yes, we will, as we move forward,' Ford said, after being asked if he would designate all five projects as special economic zones. 'But that only goes, again, with the cooperation of the 444 municipalities, always with the First Nations communities across our province as well, especially when it comes to critical minerals.' Ford's office stressed consultation on the creation of special economic zones would continue over the summer — pointing out they will be created in regulation and not automatically land when the legislation passes. 'We want to get going on nation-building projects and will make sure it's done right,' a spokesperson said. Of the five projects, the government's Highway 401 tunnel project has received the most pushback from opposition politicians. The plan is in its infancy and has been decried by opponents as a 'half-baked, back-of-the-napkin scheme.' It would involve constructing an expressway beneath Highway 401 from Mississauga to Markham and could cost tens of billions of dollars. If it were designated as a special economic zone — as the premier suggested on Friday — the route's builders could be allowed to bypass municipal bylaws and provincial laws that govern construction projects or permitting, for example. Story continues below advertisement The government recently issued a request for bidders to study how to build the route — a process which would currently take two years. Opposition politicians have raised concerns about the scope of power special economic zones will give the government, calling the move a 'power grab' that lacks transparency. Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she feared the zones would not be limited to nation-building projects and would extend beyond without limits. 'We're not just talking about mining, we're talking about access to everyone — so every farmer, every Ontarian should be concerned about this,' she said on Wednesday. 'What this government is doing is passing legislation to give them unfettered access to power. 'It's a power grab, creating no-law zones.' The legislation that will allow for the creation of special economic zones is expected to pass sometime next week at the Ontario legislature.
Hamilton Spectator
4 days ago
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
Idle No More 2.0 will be ‘fierce' if Doug Ford moves ahead with Bill 5
First Nations leaders in northern Ontario are vowing an 'Idle No More 2.0' if the province passes Bill 5, legislation designed to speed up development without clear rules on Indigenous consultation and accommodation. 'If and when this becomes law, say next week or after that, there will be fierce resistance from our side,' Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said on Thursday, representing the chiefs of 49 communities in the province's far north. 'I know my dear friend Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige has said the same thing. 'This is what we're looking at: Idle No More 2.0.' Debassige referenced the 2012 movement that asserted Indigenous rights and sovereignty across Canada in response to federal omnibus legislation in a statement Anishinabek Nation issued on Tuesday. She urged Premier Doug Ford to immediately withdraw the controversial Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, saying, 'we caution the provincial government that should Bill 5 proceed in its current form, we will be idle no more.' That statement followed two days of deputations that chiefs and grand chiefs across the province made to the Standing Committee on the Interior over the past week. All of those deputations called for the government to scrap the bill and start again with consultation, while deputations referenced the possibility of demonstrations or direct action if the bill passes. First Nations argue the series of laws that Bill 5 amends, such as the Mining Act and the Endangered Species Act, comprise a legal regime on free, prior and informed consultation and accommodation. The bill proposes new 'special economic zones' the minister can designate without size or impact limitation, that would exempt developers from following defined regulations and protocols on Indigenous engagement. 'They need to provide more details, procedures and protocols with this duty to consult,' said Nibinamik (Summer Beaver First Nation) Chief Michael Sugarhead. 'When other development comes, such as mining engagement, that we've been having recently, our rights aren't really considered.' Nibinamik is located about 100 kilometres west of the 5,000-square-kilometre Ring of Fire mineral deposit, which Ford has said he will name as the first special economic zone. Twenty years after prospectors found the deposit, Sugarhead said Ontario still refuses to recognize nearby First Nations as full partners and he's concerned this legislation will deeply impact the land while leaving future generations in poverty.'How is this going to help our community? We live in third-world conditions and it's like that because of the government,' he said. Sugarhead said the residual effects of this are poor health, poor education, and poor standards of living. 'Reconciliation is imperative in this case, to have that meaningful partnership and participation in this type of development. If it's not there, I don't think that the people of the land will give their free, prior and informed consent.' Facing mounting opposition, Progressive Conservative committee members introduced 23 amendments to Bill 5 on Wednesday, including one that made explicit the government's commitment to abide by its constitutional responsibility to consult and 'affirmation of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.' Nibinamik's lawyer, Zachary Davis, accused the Doug Ford Conservatives of committing 'lip service' to Indigenous rights, insisting the amendment is legally empty. 'The government's just admitting what is already true,' Davis said. 'These are constitutional obligations. It provides no certainty.' Sol Mamakwa , Kiiwetinoong NDP MPP and the only First Nations member of the Legislature, called the PC's amendments 'meaningless, unserious, and worse than useless,' while he accused the government of 'placing itself above and beyond the law.' Mamakwa introduced two separate motions in committee that would have seen hearings on Bill 5 take place in Thunder Bay and other parts of northern Ontario. PC committee members defeated them both. Indigenous minister Greg Rickford said during question period on Wednesday that consultation with First Nations will begin after the bill is passed. To that end, his government will introduce, 'Indigenous-led economic zones.' Rickford said in a statement to Ricochet Media that his office intends, 'to work throughout the summer in consultation with Indigenous partners to develop regulations to create new Indigenous-led economic zones as part of Bill 5. This amendment creating a new category of zone is at the request of some First Nations who, like us, want to build projects that will unlock economic prosperity for generations.' But Fiddler says Ontario has offered no direction or definition of what such a zone designation would entail. 'The impression we're getting is that they're just making things up on the fly,' Fiddler said. 'I think it's too late in the process to try to fix this bill with any kind of amendments, including creating Indigenous-led economic zones. We don't even know what that means.' The Mushkegowuk Council is meeting in Sault Ste. Marie to discuss the bill on Thursday, including representatives of Moose Cree First Nation. On April 9, Moose Cree Chief Peter Wesley stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ontario energy minister Stephen Lecce to announce the construction of two new hydroelectric facilities that will generate 430 megawatts in the shared traditional territory with Taykwa Tagamou Nation. By the end of May, Ontario introduced Bill 5. Wesley couldn't believe it. 'We were involved from the very initial stages of the project and to have minister Lecce acknowledge that, wow, this is the groundwork of how it should be,' he said. 'What happened? To have Bill 5 come out, and 'we'll think about adding consultation as an afterthought?' It's not going to work. A few weeks ago, we thought we were on the right path. I don't know if that's there anymore.' Moose Cree has been expressing disapproval of a prospective niobium mine 25 kilometres up the North French River since 2019. Wesley says he has voiced his community's opposition to the project in written letters to both Ford and Rickford, but has received no Cree members took the train to demonstrate in Ottawa during the 2012 Idle No More movement. Wesley believes that if Bill 5 passes, his community will be prepared to stand up once more.'There might be a lot of civil unrest by First Nations again,' he said. 'We have some very outspoken members who will not stand for the North French to be touched – and they've made their views pretty clear.'
Business Wire
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Ford and Bill 5's 'Special Economic Zones' Bring Worst US-Style Labour Practices to Our Province, Warns CUPE Ontario
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Imagine going to work in a town or city where, by government decree, workers had no right to health and safety, a minimum wage, or employment protections, including the right to recourse when they were injured, fired or mistreated on the job. That's the reality bearing down on Ontarians once the Ford Conservatives' Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, is made law. Buried in Schedule 9 of this omnibus bill, now at second reading in the Ontario legislature, is the wide-ranging power to create 'special economic zones' anywhere in the province. Within these zones, the provincial government can suspend or override all existing laws and regulations around labour conditions, health and safety, and environmental protections, as well as municipal regulations. 'The effects on workers, families and communities will be disastrous,' said CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn. Under Bill 5, the Ford Conservatives could turn entire cities – like Toronto or Windsor or Sudbury – into special economic zones. Any region could be named one in which fundamental labour rights and protections no longer apply, including those around child labour, the right to refuse unsafe work, and even basic meal breaks. 'Existing Ontario labour law won't apply in these special economic zones. Under the cloak of an impending economic crisis and the guise of fighting tariffs, Doug Ford plans on delivering workers to the wild west of working conditions, all to the benefit of big business,' said Hahn. Concerned groups have already pointed out the risks Bill 5 poses to the environment, biodiversity, and indigenous sovereignty; the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has called it a 'power grab.' As the largest union in Ontario, CUPE Ontario is sounding the alarm about the bill's threat to workers' rights and the alarming history of flagrant labour violations in special economic zones in the US and around the world. 'The Ford Conservatives are not letting a crisis go to waste,' warned Hahn. 'We're in a climate of deep uncertainty and we are all worried about our future, so few are paying any attention to what the newly re-elected Conservatives are actually doing at Queen's Park.' The threats from tariffs and their fallout are real, Hahn pointed out, 'but you don't solve one problem by creating dozens of others. The potential for labour violations is enormous. No one voted for Doug Ford to turn Huntsville, Ontario, into Huntsville, Alabama.' He continued: 'Doug Ford won the election by wrapping himself in the flag, naming himself Captain Canada, and claiming he'd defend Ontario workers and Ontario jobs. Now he's using the tariff wars as camouflage to create the conditions in which corporate greed can flourish unchecked and without fundamental protections like labour rights. You can't fight for Canada by bringing in laws that copy the very worst of the US laws.' 'Ford has adopted the tactics of the most right-wing Republican demagogues. Canada is not and never will be the fifty-first state – and labour and environmental rights are part of what defines us as distinct from the US. These are rights to be strengthened and protected, not disregarded and suspended.'
Toronto Star
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
Doug Ford said he would protect Ontario, so why is he doing the opposite?
Premier Doug Ford sailed to his recent election victory speaking loudly from behind a podium decked out with a 'Protect Ontario' sign. He ran for a third term laser-focused on promising to save us all from U.S. President Donald Trump. So why now does it seem that protecting us from the U.S. involves slashing environmental laws and giving special powers to his friends? Take the newly introduced Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act (Bill 5). From the title, it sounds like the bill is focused on boosting Ontario's economy by creating new jobs, finding new markets and generally taking on the U.S. tariffs and threat to Canada's sovereignty. But move past the title and you'll see a different reality. The bill would in fact give the Premier and his cabinet the power to hand-pick individuals or companies who would then be allowed to bypass any or all of Ontario's provincial and municipal laws. Anyone who makes a successful pitch could be exempt from all labour, occupational health and safety, pollution, planning and public safety laws for whatever project or development they desire. There are no criteria in the bill for who gets these special powers, on what basis they would be designated or even their geographic scope. Bill 5 also proposes to exempt the Eagle's Nest Mine in northern Ontario and a proposed landfill near Dresden, Ont., from Ontario's Environmental Assessment Act. The mine, which is located near the Ring of Fire, is not expected to meet federal review criteria, meaning that without a provincial assessment it would be allowed to proceed without any social or economic review. The Ford government initially designated the proposed landfill for an environmental assessment in response to strong opposition from the local community, and in the midst of a provincial byelection. During that byelection, all major candidates came out in opposition of the proposed landfill, including the successful Conservative candidate Steve Pinsonneault. Following Pinsonneault's re-election earlier this year, the Ford government seems to have changed its mind — Bill 5 would now remove the environmental assessment requirement from the landfill and allow it to proceed without review. These anti-democratic attacks are accompanied by the Bill's proposed repeal of the province's Endangered Species Act. If passed, developers would have no legal requirement to protect plants and animals on the brink of extinction. Even the role of determining which species are endangered or threatened would fall to a government minister, not scientists as is currently the case. Rather than saving us from the threat of Trump, these seizures of power by the Premier actually mirror the U.S. Administration's play to slash environmental protections and centralize power in the hands of big-tech billionaires and industry insiders. Just weeks after his re-election, Premier Ford now seems to share Trump's view that any law that protects water, air, wildlife, cultural values or public safety should be swept away to cater to the interests of his favoured friends. History has shown us that such an approach will be costly for us all, including for business. This is not the path that Ontarians were promised by the Premier, and we need to remind government MPPs across the province that we expect better. As we know from watching the growing disaster south of the border, the future of our country depends on it.
