The story of my people, the Grassy Narrows First Nation, weighs heavily on the collective conscience of Canada. For over half a century mercury poison has contaminated the river that is our lifeblood.

In one of Canada’s most shameful and tragic acts of wilful neglect, nothing has ever been done to clean up the 9,000 kg of mercury dumped in our river, while generations of Grassy Narrows families continue to bear the debilitating burden of mercury poisoning.

Now we have a tremendous opportunity to create a fresh start.

This week a new scientific expert report found our river can indeed be cleaned up, and the fish can become safe to eat again, even for pregnant women. We are blessed to be offered this momentous opportunity to set things right. This is the sacred work of healing and reconciliation. We must seize this opportunity with all of our creativity, compassion, and power.

Instead, we have been met with stalling and dodging from Premier Kathleen Wynne, and silence from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

For many decades our relationship with the government has been one of broken trust, neglect, and abuse. On top of mercury poisoning we have endured residential schools, hydro dams, relocation, and clear-cut logging. Nowhere in Canada is the need for reconciliation more stark and urgent.

In 1962 a pulp and paper mill in Dryden, Ont., began dumping untreated mercury waste into the Wabigoon River upstream from our homes. For the next 8 years our families ate our daily meals of fish from the river without any warning that they were among the most contaminated fish on Earth.

For countless generations the river has been sacred to our people, providing fish, drinking water, and nearly full employment in the guiding and commercial fishing businesses. In the 1970s when the mercury pollution was brought to light, our economy collapsed, and our people were diagnosed with the debilitating symptoms of mercury poisoning by Japanese experts: numbness in the finger tips and lips, narrowing field of vision, loss of coordination, and trembling. These are the symptoms of a degenerating brain.

Under intense pressure, the governments of Ontario and Canada set up a scientific panel to identify solutions. In 1984, scientists made their final recommendations: The river should be cleaned up. Pilot projects had achieved a 90 per cent reduction of mercury levels in aquatic life without any negative side effects.

More than 50 years after the dumping began it grieves me deeply to see absolutely nothing has been done to clean up our river and that our people continue to suffer.

The same Japanese research teams, now world-renowned, have recently reported that a new generation of young people in Grassy Narrows bears the lifelong burden of mercury poisoning. Ecologists tell us that fish in Clay Lake on our Wabigoon River still have the highest mercury levels in Northwestern Ontario by far. One meal of walleye from Clay Lake contains up to 150 times the safe daily dose of mercury recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Levels of mercury in the fish have not improved since the early ’90s, suggesting that there is an ongoing source of mercury in the system.

My people have never given up hope. Through epic strength, tenacity, and wisdom we have become leaders in a new movement that is guided by the people who have the most at stake and the deepest vision forging strong alliances to fight for our common future.

We now have both federal and provincial governments who have made promises to repair Canada’s relationship with First Nations and to right the wrongs that have been done to First Nations people. We consider those promises to be sacred. This new relationship must bring justice for Grassy Narrows or its promise will not be fulfilled.

We must not deny another generation of our children a bright future by refusing to clean our river. It is time for Premier Wynne and Prime Minister Trudeau to join Grassy Narrows in breathing life back into the abundant river from which our health and our culture flow.

We are ready to walk a new path with you. We are ready to demonstrate to Canada and the world that even in the most challenging of circumstances hope can be reborn.

Simon Fobister Sr. is the chief of Grassy Narrows Reserve.