LaForme, senior counsel at Olthuis Kleer Townsend, a law firm solely specializing in Indigenous issues, was also instrumental in the First Nations Drinking Water class-action settlement approved last year. Appointees to the Order of Canada will receive their insignia at an investiture ceremony with details yet to be announced.

The First Nation has long been among the most vocal critics of plans to build a proposed road that would connect the Ring of Fire mineral deposit to the highway networks and manufacturing might of Ontario’s south. Now, they’re working to start a sturgeon stewardship program in an effort to protect the fish from proposed development. Even with the most optimistic of estimates, shovels for the proposed Ring of Fire project are years away from going into the ground, but people in Neskantaga First Nation feel a growing sense of urgency.

Batchewana First Nation celebrated the official grand opening of its long-awaited Chi We Kwe Don water treatment plant in Goulais Bay 15A Thursday. The facility went online this past March, pumping clean, drinkable water into 49 homes in the small reserve situated 45 minutes north of Sault Ste. Marie for the first time in several years. The federal government allotted $14.6 million for feasibility, design and construction of the new water treatment plant in addition to 10 point-of-entry water systems for Obadjiwan 15E — another community belonging to Batchewana First Nation situated in the Batchawana Bay area.

The Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership has officially launched a new initiative titled the Knowledge Basket. It will provide resources to communities and officials involved with Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). These are lands and waters where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems. “Indigenous governments are at the forefront of protecting the largest, healthiest and most biodiverse areas across Canada,” said Steven Nitah, a core member of the Indigenous Circle of experts who helped develop the Knowledge Basket database.