Grassy Narrows Grassroots Statement
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Our youth lead this fight, travelling to Toronto, Winnipeg, and Ottawa to raise their powerful and creative voices, writing songs, performing plays, painting banners, and marching, to move us forward.
Our Elders guide us, and they have fought too.
Our women are warriors. We drum and sing our songs, organize, carrying our babies as we march, holding up our families with love though the ongoing daily assault of the mercury crisis.
Too many of us have not survived to see this day. I remember my father speaking his truth at the River Run in 2012. We remember Steve Fobister Sr. hunger striking on the Queens Park lawn in 2014. We remember Simon Fobister pounding the table in 2017 as the Minister tried to dodge our demands. We remember our granddaughters playing at the blockade and dancing in the streets.
I honour all our people who fight to get us here. I thank all of our supporters and allies who believe in us.
This is not over. Through our perseverance we have finally won a place for our sickest community members to live and be cared for with dignity. But our fight goes on.
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If you can, please donate now to support our grassroots mercury justice efforts.
This agreement commits the full $19.5 million that the Mercury Care Home is estimated to cost to build, as well as $68.9 million in long term funding for operations and maintenance, including federally funded services that Grassy Narrows can put in a trust to keep it safe. It also makes a way to add more funding if it is needed in the future. We will continue to hold Canada to all of its commitments and obligations, and we will ensure that our people get the full, quality care that they need in a secure long-term way.
This is one step forward, but there is a long road ahead until we have mercury justice.
We will fight for compensation for all of our people for the ongoing harm of the mercury crisis.
We will fight to restore our health, our way of life, and our self-determination.
We will fight to protect our land, our water, and our climate which are under threat of industrial logging and mining.
We will fight until everyone is free.
We know that you will continue to be beside us in this fight, which is all of our fight for a better future.
We fight together with our cousins across Turtle Island. This fight is many generations old, and it will continue for many generations after we are gone. We recognize that we are in an important time and we are in solidarity with the grassroots people in Wet’suwet’en, Tyendinaga, Kahnawake, and across this land. We are all stronger when we fight together. This is a time for all people who believe in Indigenous self-determination, and in protecting the sources of life to take action.
How did we do it? We followed our instincts and our dreams which are the wisdom of our ancestors flowing through our veins. We sang the songs of our people and revived our ceremonies. We worked to empower our youth and our women. We built unity within our community. We built alliances across communities and across sectors of the movement, even when it was hard to trust. We embraced resolute and peaceful direct action, even when it took great courage and patience. We demanded what we need and we did not yield.
We will sing, and dance, and fight as long as the rivers flow.
The Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group