https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/matawa-first-nations-are-more-stakeholders-their-territories-they-tell

From Chief Paul Achneepineskum:

........The Matawa First Nations will not be sitting still while it waits for the government to respond.

“We’ll continue to meet with the people who have interest, (such as) industry. What we’re saying is we want to see not just token benefits out of it, we want to be owners and operators … in terms of any development,” said Achneepineskum.

He holds firm that within Matawa First Nations’ land there are potential resources that can benefit Ontario and Canada, as well as the First Nations.

“We also want to make sure that our people that live there, not just in Matawa, but in other Treaty 9 communities, that they will have direct benefits, to bring up our standards of living, to have every opportunity for anybody who wants to work, that the opportunities be there,” said Achneepineskum.

That is also a sentiment that holds true with the new Rapid Lynx broadband project which, he says, Matawa First Nations were never consulted on. In October, the province gave $30 million, which along with the federal funding of $39 million, will bring state of the art next-generation high-speed broadband to internet dead spots in five fly-in/remote First Nations in the Matawa region.

Matawa First Nations, however, want to push for control and authority over and gain benefit from the project.

“Matawa is going to own/operate the broadband fibre network where every community will be fibre-to-home,” said Achneepineskum.  “At the end we will own and operate it and that’s how we see (it) in terms of moving forward, whether it’s a road or providing energy development, electricity, Matawa would be owners and operators to that.”

TM.

Matawa First Nations chiefs will be meeting over the next weeks to determine how to move forward on Bill 132, he says.