The first legal challenge against a 107-kilometre road into Ontario’s Ring of Fire region is raising questions about whether piece-by-piece assessments of new mining infrastructure will accurately capture its cumulative impact.

Friends of the Attawapiskat River has asked the Federal Court to overturn Ottawa’s approval of the Webequie Supply Road over concerns about Indigenous rights, climate, biodiversity, and the broader development the road could enable.

The Treaty 9-based grassroots group filed [pdf] an application July 23 for a judicial review challenging Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin’s June 25 approval of an all-season road between Webequie First Nation and the McFaulds Lake area, where mineral deposits in the Ring of Fire are located.

The federal impact assessment completed for the supply road concluded that the project could cause significant adverse effects in areas of federal jurisdiction, including impacts on Indigenous peoples and their rights. It also considered potential effects on wetlands and peatlands, caribou and other wildlife, traditional land use, and culturally significant areas.

Dabrusin nevertheless determined the project was justified in the public interest. The government says its decision was informed by scientific evidence, Indigenous knowledge, and public and Indigenous consultation. Sixteen Indigenous communities participated in the assessment, and the approval includes legally-binding conditions intended to mitigate environmental effects and impacts on Indigenous peoples.

Friends of the Attawapiskat argues the decision is “inherently unreasonable and fundamentally flawed,” alleging it fails to account for rights set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and negative impacts on climate, biodiversity, and sustainability.

The Webequie Supply Road is one of three proposed road projects for developing the Ring of Fire, alongside the Marten Falls Community Access Road and the Northern Road Link. The three projects are proceeding through separate environmental and impact assessment processes. Ontario’s review of the Marten Falls Community Access Road notes concerns from Nibinamik and Attawapiskat First Nations that assessing the three separately, rather than together, minimizes consideration of regional and induced impacts.

Kate Kempton, senior counsel at Woodward & Company LLP, said the case highlights what she describes as “project splitting,” where components of a broader development are assessed separately.

“The three mining road segments are really part of one road intended to open up the Ring of Fire region to massive mining development,” Kempton told The Energy Mix.

That means all the road segments should be considered through an environmental or impact assessment that “very robustly considers” the prospective mining and related development the roads are intended to facilitate.

“Failure or refusal to do that will not make the whole go away,” she said. “It just means our decision-making will ignore the effects of the whole.”