Kiiwetinoong

Kiiwetinoong, an Ojibway word meaning “north,” is the largest provincial riding in Ontario by land area and one of the smallest by population. Created in 2017 by the Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission, it is the only riding in Ontario where a majority of the population is Indigenous. The riding encompasses the municipalities of Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, and Pickle Lake, as well as dozens of remote First Nations communities, most of which are accessible year-round only by air. Sol Mamakwa of the NDP had represented the riding since its creation in 2018, becoming the first person from a First Nation to be elected to the Ontario Legislature. He entered the 2022 campaign as a strong incumbent whose advocacy on drinking water, housing, and Indigenous rights had earned him a national profile.

The contest attracted five candidates, but the race was widely seen as a test of whether Mamakwa’s vocal opposition to the Ford government on Indigenous issues would resonate in a riding where many residents felt neglected by Queen’s Park regardless of which party held power.

Candidates

Sol Mamakwa (NDP) — A member of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, Mamakwa grew up in the remote fly-in community and speaks Oji-Cree as his first language. He attended residential school as a teenager in northwestern Ontario. Before entering politics, he worked for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and served as co-chair for the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre. As MPP, he served as the Official Opposition critic for Indigenous and Treaty Relations and introduced Bill 286, the Inherent Right to Safe Drinking Water Act, which sought to extend the Safe Drinking Water Act to include First Nations reserves.

Dwight Monck (Progressive Conservative) — The mayor of Pickle Lake at the time of the election, Monck had been acclaimed to that position in 2018. He began his career as a police officer in Exeter, Ontario, and transferred to the Ontario Provincial Police in Sioux Lookout in 1995, later serving as a detachment commander in Pickle Lake. After leaving policing in 2007, he started small businesses and worked with Wasaya Airways.

Manuela Michelizzi (Liberal) — A teacher in Sioux Lookout, Michelizzi was born in Thunder Bay and held a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education from Lakehead University. She was an executive member of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s northwest unit and a community volunteer.

Suzette A. Foster (Green Party) — An Ojibway woman and Sixties Scoop survivor, Foster had lived in the Red Lake area since 1987. She had experience in both the mining and forestry industries and had served as President of the Red Lake Indian Friendship Centre.

Alex Dornn also ran for the New Blue Party.

Local Issues

The drinking water crisis was the defining issue in Kiiwetinoong. At the time of the election, the majority of Ontario’s remaining long-term boil water advisories were in communities within the riding. Neskantaga First Nation had been under a continuous boil water advisory since 1995, the longest in Canada, and the community had been evacuated in October 2020 after an oily sheen was discovered in its water reservoir. Many homes in remote communities were not connected to centralized water systems, forcing residents to rely on standpipes, water trucks, and cisterns. Mamakwa had introduced the Inherent Right to Safe Drinking Water Act in 2021, arguing that the province had a responsibility to ensure the same water quality standards on reserves as elsewhere in Ontario.

Housing conditions in remote First Nations were equally dire. In January 2019, Cat Lake First Nation declared a state of emergency after independent assessments found mould or traces of mould in the majority of the 128 homes in the community and deemed 87 of them uninhabitable. Medical evacuations from the community were occurring on an almost daily basis. The federal government committed 12.8 million dollars in March 2019 to address the crisis, but broader housing shortages persisted across the riding, with overcrowding common in communities where two or three families shared single homes designed for one.

Access to health care and basic services remained a challenge across the riding’s vast geography. The 236-kilometre Northern Ontario Resource Trail from Pickle Lake provided the only year-round road access to the region’s northernmost communities, with winter roads serving as the sole ground connection to many fly-in reserves. Residents called for better maintenance of existing roads and improved access to medical services, as patients frequently required costly medical evacuations by air to hospitals in Sioux Lookout or Thunder Bay.