Posted By Sue Yanagisawa
Kingston Whig Standard
Sept 19, 2007
The two First Nations groups being sued by a uranium-mining company filed a $10-million counterclaim against the company and the Ontario goverment during a hearing yesterday in Kingston.
In its statement of defence, the Ardoch Algonquin First Nations and Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nations stated that they are also seeking $1 billion from the government for breach of fiduciary duty and breach of a duty to consult. They claim, too, that the mining act is unconstitutional.
Oakville-based Frontenac Ventures Corp. is seeking a way to force its opponents - the Algonquins and their supporters - to leave the site so the company can continue its exploration work.
It's currently suing the Algonquins for $77 million, claiming that the protest has prevented them from doing work on the property since June 29. The inactivity, it says, has jeopardized their financial backing.
Neil Smitheman, the lawyer representing Frontenac Ventures, spent yesterday morning in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice grilling Ontario Provincial Police for the names of protesters occupying the company's proposed mine sites north of Sharbot Lake.
The hearing was held after the company's lawyer, Neal Smitheman, subpoenaed officers from Sharbot Lake detachment.
He was attempting to advance prosecution of civil contempt charges against those defying an Aug. 27 interim injunction that ordered them off the property.
The dispute is scheduled to be heard next week before Justice Douglas Cunningham, who will hear submissions on Frontenac Ventures' application for a permanent injunction and, possibly, the counterclaim launched by the Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nations.
Early in the proceedings, Smitheman complained that the position taken by the OPP, that their role was to mediate and prevent confrontation between the parties, "has unfortunately resulted in maintaining the blockade."
The only option remaining for his clients, he told the judge, "is to bring a contempt charge." But to do that, he said he needed to question officers to discover what they knew about the identities of the people occupying the property.
At the end of yesterday's exploratory hearing, Robert Lovelace, a former chief of Ardoch First Nations, told the judge that he was concerned Sharbot Lake's Sgt. Jeffery McCann had been compelled to provide information received from a member of the OPP Aboriginal Response Team (ART).
The OPP's Aboriginal Response Team (ART) and Major Events Liaison Team are two initiatives created in the aftermath of Ipperwash.
Outside the courtroom, Lovelace said both had appeared to be working well in this dispute, aiding the community by building trust, although "we don't expect them to take our side."
He told Thomson that ART members have been "embedded" in the Ardoch community based on that trust and he now fears "that the aboriginal community, as well as other people who protest, that this may undermine the confidence they have in the [ART] process."
In the end, the eight lawyers representing Frontenac Ventures, the Algonquins, OPP and government of Ontario met among themselves and agreed to set a date in front of Cunningham for the trial of an issue on the contempt.
Lawyers Stephen Reynolds and Christopher Reid, representing the two groups of Algonquins, also agreed to accept service on warrants of attendance for six of the seven people to be cited, four of them already named in the injunction application.