Bob Rae steps into Ring of Fire 2

I'm looking at a map of Northern Ontario where there's a pretty patchwork of colours in the shape of a crescent moon: deep sea-blue for Freewest Resources, orange for KWG, bright sun-yellow for Probe, grass green for Fancamp, sky blue for the Freewest-Spider- KWG partnership.

They are some of the thousands of claims staked by mining companies in the Ring of Fire -- 5,120 square kilometres in the watersheds of Hudson and James bays and chock full of chromite, nickel, copper and zinc worth well over $100 billion.

That's a sizable chunk of boreal forest, itself a carbon sink in the order of the Amazon rain forest.

Imagine you're on the shore of McFaulds Lake. You're looking at trees and rock and muskeg -- swampland, millions of acres of it.

Turn around and you'll see KWG's base camp and maybe a drill or two pulling up core samples of chromite.

Well, why not? you ask. There's nothing else there.

Not so. It's home for everything and everyone from black flies to black bears to First Nations peoples -- Cree and Anishinaabek -- whose ways of life will be forever altered if and when all those pretty coloured claims become mines.

Some people are growing impatient for those mines. Keith Hobbs, the mayor of Thunder Bay, says, "Everybody can get rich on this ... We're tired of hearing, 'It's going to happen, it's going to happen.' It needs to happen."

If you think of this as Ontario's oilsands, Thunder Bay would be Fort McMurray -- an analogy Hobbs himself uses.

Everyone, including the mayor, wants to "do it right." But doing it right is where everything can go wrong.

In Sudbury, Cliffs Natural Resources has plans to ship chromite from the Ring of Fire area to a smelter near Capreol, creating as many as 500 jobs.

Mining companies, rightly, want to make a profit. Shareholders, rightly, want a healthy return on their investment. Municipalities want jobs and new infrastructure.

The Crown wants royalties (and votes). Environmentalists want to preserve the environment.

First Nations want all these things. They're not opposed to development, as long as it doesn't turn the land inside out. So, they're banking their future on fair and proper consultation.

In making the law on consultation, the Supreme Court of Canada said, done right, it would lead to reconciliation between Canada and Turtle Island.

But reconciliation will demand accord between peoples of very different cultures and status. And that requires trust where there is none, and a kind of understanding that must go far beyond tolerance, which itself is in short supply.

It demands legislative flexibility where the law is becoming more hidebound and ideological. It'll take enormous patience from a public impatient with Turtle Island's impoverished circumstances and First Nations' demands for relief from those circumstances.

Into this ring of fire walks former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who a month ago

announced plans to step down as a Liberal MP.

Rae is now the lead negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council, nine Anishinaabe First Nations in the area most directly impacted by the thousands of claims on the road to becoming mines.

"The elders talk to me of the overwhelming importance of the environment," Rae said in an interview, "and their deep concern about the long-term challenges resource development will bring to the region. But they are also concerned about the pattern of dependence and despondency that has taken over their communities.

"They remember the time of making a living on the land. That life is now increasingly difficult.

"The question of an adequate and impartial process has to be on the table. Matawa's concerns about existing processes are a matter of public record. It's very early days in discussions with the province, but I'm satisfied that Mr. (Frank) Iacobucci (a former Supreme Court of Canada justice and Ontario's negotiator) wants the same.

"The by-products of chromium mining are very hazardous to the environment and to people. We are mindful that the oilsands expansion was allowed by a federal environmental assessment in spite of its acknowledgement of environmental degradation."

And that begs a crucial question: Where is the federal Crown?

Where's the Harper government?

"I haven't heard from the federal government directly," said Rae. "Our goal right now is to engage the province. However, from the federal perspective, the EA process has been badly weakened."

The feds were last seen opposing Matawa's attempt to introduce expert evidence during a judicial review of the government's decision to hold a comprehensive environmental assessment on a Cliffs Resources project. That process would exclude effective participation from First Nations.

Cliffs, an American chromium mining company, brought a similar motion. Matawa won that round. A decision on the legitimacy of the EA is expected in September.

Rae is probably the best man for the job: Smart, with the political heft for talks with government, the respect of Canadians and the support of First Nations people.

As Anishinaabe author and linguist Basil Johnston put it, "His head and his heart are both in the right place."

Now, I know he's not the only one on his side of the table. And I know the Anishinaabek have a way of mapping out their own path whether we like it or not.

Nevertheless, one of those ridiculous old high school football chants has dogged me since our first conversation.

"Rae! Rae! He's our man. If he can't do it, no one can."

And that's what frightens me.

-- David McLaren has worked in government, the private sector, NGOs and with First Nations in Ontario, where he helped negotiate environmental agreements with corporations.