First Nations leaders warn of confrontation over Ontario’s ‘special economic zones’ in omnibus bill

First Nations leaders are warning the Ontario government that passing a bill allowing it to designate “special economic zones” where mining or other development could be exempted from any provincial law will result in confrontations with Indigenous people.Indigenous drumming and singing echoed through the corridors of Queen‘s Park on Thursday, as the Progressive Conservative government’s Bill 5 went before a legislative committee. First Nations chiefs and spokespeople from as many as 1,500-kilometres away in Ontario’s North told MPPs that they had not been consulted on the bill and warned it would trample on their treaty rights.