Bill Fobister Sr.’s granddaughter, Betty, is forced to use a wheelchair and is unable to speak.

The 25-year-old has qualified for compensation from a disability board that gives money to people with symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning.

But there is no specialized care for her in Grassy Narrows First Nation, where she is from, and which has a long legacy of mercury contamination, Bill Fobister said. So his granddaughter lives with a foster family in Fort Frances, Ont., a town 280 kilometres from her parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins and culture.

“We don’t have a place for her,” Fobister Sr. said. “I beg the . . . government to make a commitment that they will do something (in) our community for the sake of those who are suffering.”

Fobister and other Grassy Narrows leaders are in Toronto this week to ask provincial and federal officials to help build a care home for survivors of the industrial pollution that has sickened the community for decades. It is not the first time they have come from northwestern Ontario with this request.

“It’s just like when a dog chases its tail around and around but never catches up . . . and this is what’s been happening with our demand for this mercury home and treatment centre,” Chief Simon Fobister said Tuesday.

Top officials from the provincial and federal governments said they are taking the request seriously, will be meeting with Grassy Narrows representatives Wednesday, and want to get something done.

“We will be there for them for the long run to support some appropriate facility once we have more information,” said federal Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott after a cabinet meeting Tuesday. The federal government has already committed to a feasibility study of a care home. “Going forward, we will do the right thing.”

The contingent from Grassy Narrows said many ill residents have had to leave the community to get the care they need in Kenora, or other towns and cities further from home.

What they want built was unveiled at a press conference at Queens Park Tuesday: A proposed $4.5-million mercury care centre that would include rooms for eight residents, an exam room and customized showers and tubs for the infirm — all essential things that a current community clinic does not offer, the leaders said.

Such a facility could also be a home for needed palliative care, physiotherapy, counselling and traditional healing.

“We are deeply concerned about this issue. We will consider what we hear from both the federal government and the First Nations and the province. But we are working toward a solution for this,” said David Zimmer, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.

The legacy of mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows and nearby Whitedog began in the 1960s, when a pulp and paper mill upstream dumped 10 tonnes of the neurotoxin into the river that has been the lifeblood of the communities. The mercury contaminated the fish and poisoned the people.

An ongoing Star investigation has revealed that in 1984, the then-environment minister recommended that the river be cleaned up, but the government of the day ignored his recommendation and chose instead to let the river clean itself naturally. For decades, politicians repeated that this strategy was working, until recently. Test results from soil, fish and river sediment reveal there are still dangerously high levels of mercury which suggest there is an ongoing source from the site of the paper mill.

In a historic announcement this past summer, Ontario pledged $85 million to clean up the river system.

But then earlier this month Premier Kathleen Wynne was scrambling to determine why she was in the dark about an explosive report detailing mercury-contaminated soil and groundwater on mill property upstream from Grassy Narrows.

As the Star revealed, the report, which was commissioned by the current owners of the mill, Domtar, and in the government’s possession for more than a year, said the environment ministry was told in 1990 that mercury was visible in soil under a building on the mill site. Further, the document said, companies that previously owned the mill tested groundwater wells on the property throughout the 1990s and until 2006. Those tests showed elevated levels of mercury. Just last year, Domtar had several of these wells tested and one result showed an elevated mercury level.

There is no suggestion that Domtar, a pulp manufacturer several owners removed from Reed Paper, is responsible for any source of mercury.

The neurotoxin has sickened generations who consider walleye from the river a dietary staple.

Physical symptoms of mercury poisoning include loss of muscle co-ordination and tunnel vision. Fetuses are particularly vulnerable to cognitive damage. Recent research by Japanese experts shows residents, including the younger generation, continue to have symptoms of mercury poisoning.

Bill Fobister says his granddaughter, Betty, needs a speech therapist and physical therapist. Both he and Betty get mercury board disability benefits, he said, adding that his sense of taste and smell are “gone” and his hearing is poor.

He also said his cousin, Steve Fobister Sr., a former chief who is ailing and was recently in a Kenora hospital, needs a place to get care near his loved ones.

In the summer of 2014, Fobister Sr. went on a hunger strike to protest that mercury survivors receive inadequate health care and compensation, and he took that protest to Queen’s Park. Helped from his wheelchair by a friend and standing at the lectern with the aid of a cane, the former fishing guide said it was time for action.

Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Minister David Zimmer met with Fobister Sr. at the time and stood with him at a news conference. Zimmer said he was going to seek federal help and that the provincial government was considering a treatment centre in the community.

During a recent visit by the Star to the community, Fobister Sr., who has been in an out of the hospital, said he was too sick to meet with a reporter.

“We want to achieve real progress that will lead to improved outcomes and create prosperous, healthy and strong communities at Grassy Narrows and (Whitedog),” said Zimmer in a statement to the Star.

“There are no quick-fix solutions. Many of these issues are historic, complex and multi-jurisdictional. There is much work to be done and we are dedicated to achieving progress on these issues.”

Chief Simon Fobister said the people of Grassy Narrows can wait no longer for a care home.

“They get sent away to Kenora, which is an hour-and-a-half away, or they get sent to Winnipeg or Thunder Bay, which is hours and hours away, and then families can’t be with their loved ones, and they die alone.”

Alana Pahpasay, a Grassy Narrows councillor at the Queen’s Park press conference Tuesday, said family members often cannot afford the transportation cost to visit sick loved ones now living in other communities.

After the press conference, NDP MPP Peter Tabuns agreed the time for a care home commitment is now.

“I can’t imagine how you could turn your back on this community and not make the investment so that people can be treated in their homes and not be forced to go away,” he said. “It’s a very simple request, and it’s one that needs to be addressed. Fast.”

And Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario, said: “If this was happening in a non-Indigenous community, this facility would have been built already. The fact that it’s happening in an Indigenous community, I think is a shameful statement that this government hasn’t acted, and it’s time to act now.”

Several other organizations, including the David Suzuki Foundation, Amnesty International and Earthroots, also threw their support behind Grassy Narrows’ request for a mercury home in an open letter to Wynne and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Said Gord Miller, Chair of the Board for Earthroots and former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario: “This preventable tragedy has gone on far too long. All possible measures to help the people of Grassy Narrows and mitigate the impacts must be pursued.”