Ontario Premier Doug Ford is "blowing into the wind" when he talks about driving a bulldozer into the James Bay Lowlands to launch the Ring of Fire mining project, and new tactics are needed to deal with Ford and his federal counterparts, says former Batchewana First Nation Chief Dean Sayers.
"There is a lot of value, I think, in looking outside the box that the colonial government has created for you to think from," says Sayers, who announced late last month that he's running for grand chief of the national Assembly of First Nations,
"If we keep doing the same thing that we've been doing forever, we're gonna get the same result," Sayers said during a grassroots meeting last weekend of environmental activists in Sault Ste. Marie.
"We've got to come up with new perspectives, new ideas, new plans. I think you've got to push the envelope," he told the meeting, organized by Northwatch, a regional coalition of environmental organizations, community groups and individual members in northeastern Ontario.
Sayers has been a key figure in negotiations that resulted last month in the $10-billion Robinson Huron Treaty annuities settlement.
He's running against five other candidates for AFN national chief:
- Reginald Bellerose, chair of Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority, and of Saskatchewan Indian Training Assessment Group
- Craig Makinaw, former chief of Ermineskin Cree Nation and former AFN Alberta regional chief
- Sheila North, former grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak
- David Pratt, vice-chief of Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations
- Cindy Woodhouse, AFN Manitoba regional chief
Voting is scheduled for Dec. 6 at a special chiefs assembly in Ottawa.