Reconciliation and Indigenous resurgence in the Ontario Far North and Mushkegowuk Cree land use planning processes

The introduction of Ontario’s Far North Initiative in 2008 and resulting Far North Act (2010) set in motion efforts to create land use plans in the northern regions of the Canadian province. Ontario’s approach to reconciling Aboriginal and treaty rights with provincial planning was through a community-based land use planning process, to which Mushkegowuk Council responded with a regional process based on the Omushkegowuk nation. The paper argues that the goals and approach of Mushkegowuk Council were reflective of indigenous resurgence principles, to which Ontario’s community-based planning objectives were a significant obstacle. The paper will closely examine the challenges Mushkegowuk Council faced in their attempt to assert an alternative to Ontario’s Far North planning, and the implications for Mushkegowuk Council and other indigenous communities and organizations involved in land use planning. The paper will conclude with a discussion of how the case study exemplifies the broader difficulties of achieving indigenous driven planning as resurgence necessarily confronts the institutions and ambitions of Settler governments.