Premier Doug Ford said First Nations should come straight to him on resource projects to get them done quickly, as Ontario is losing out on business investment due to red tape.
In a speech to the pro-development First Nations Major Projects Coalition conference on Monday, Ford described how he and Aroland First Nation Chief Sonny Gagnon came to a deal on building a road partway to the Ring of Fire mining area.
Talks through the public service had dragged on for more than two-and-a-half years, Ford said.
"You'd think we're rebuilding the CN Tower," he said.
At the end of one meeting, Ford said he invited Gagnon into his office.
"So we sat down, and we walked out of the office 15 minutes later, and we said, 'We have a deal, conditional on getting approval from the other communities in the area," Ford said.
The deal includes electricity so the community no longer has to rely on diesel generators, and a new Ontario Provincial Police centre, he said.
"I sat back and said, 'Sonny, do you want a hockey rink and a community centre?' He said, 'I'd love that.' I said, 'Then let's shake hands,'" Ford said.
"And we can get all the lawyers and all the paperwork ... I said, 'But when we shake hands, shaking hands means everything to me. We have a bond,'" he said.
"And he told me later on, he goes, 'I'll never forget the time you were in the office' — and that was the first time I met him, by the way — 'we shook hands, the deal was done.'"
"So, I guess the end of the story, give me a call, come into my office and we'll get things done, rather than go through the bureaucracy," Ford said.
"Do you know what I can't stand, folks?" the premier added later in his speech. "I can't stand a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats and everyone sitting around the table, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. It drives me crazy. You have to pull me off the ceiling. Let's talk, and let's get things done, start moving. And then we go around — it's like the merry-go-round. We just keep going around and around. And that's why all of you need to visit my office. We'll get it done real quick," he said.
Ford said he got a call from "one of the CEOs of the big mining companies" who told him he was moving $500 million of investment to Australia "until Ontario gets their act together and gets rid of the red tape and the regulations."
The CEO told him it would take seven or eight years to get a permit, among other red-tape complaints, Ford said.
"That's one company. Just imagine all the other companies that don't bother calling me and just move or don't even invest," he said.
Ontario needs to become more self-reliant in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, and a big part of that will be through First Nations resource projects, Ford said.
"I think he wakes up every morning and thinks, 'What am I going to come up with today?' Even his own people that I talk to, they can't figure it out," he said of the president.
Whichever party wins the federal election on Monday will need to spend more on First Nations, Ford said.
"I always complain to (Indigenous Affairs Minister) Greg (Rickford), right? I always say Ontario, as a province, supports our First Nations more than the federal government," he said.
The latest federal budget committed $32 billion in Indigenous-related spending in 2024-25, according to the Yellowhead Institute. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada's estimates came in just under $11 billion, while Ontario's Ministry of Indigenous Affairs is estimated to spend $137 million this fiscal year.
The premier said ongoing boil-water advisories are "absolutely ridiculous" and that the feds must create a better "economic development system."
"And I will be on them, whoever the leader is, like an 800-pound gorilla to make sure this happens every single day," he said.
Ford said First Nations "treat me like gold" whenever he visits.
"I never, ever forget that. I will do whatever I can to make sure your communities are prosperous and they grow the likes of which this province has never seen," he said.
