A new mercury treatment facility lags behind schedule, while Grassy Narrows said it has only received 1 per cent of the required funding

OTTAWA — The chief of the Grassy Narrows First Nation has rejected an apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying Ottawa needs to put its promised funding for a mercury poisoning treatment centre into a trust in order to ensure the money will be available over the long term.

“Trudeau’s apology rings hollow while our people are suffering without the care and support that we need,” Grassy Narrows Chief Rudy Turtle said in a written response to the National Post.

Trudeau apologized to Grassy Narrows after a video surfaced of the prime minister telling protestor Lana Goldberg “thank you very much for your donation” in response to her interruption of a high-end Liberal Party fundraiser Wednesday, where she was raising awareness about the First Nations community.

Grassy Narrows has been suffering from mercury poisoning in its local water supply for decades, after an upstream pulp and paper mill dumped thousands of pounds of effluent into the English-Wabigoon river system through the ’60s and early ’70s. Goldberg was representing an advocacy group called Free Grassy Narrows, which aims to help the community secure a long-term care facility for patients of mercury poisonings.

Opposition members of parliament blasted Trudeau’s comments as being flippant and smug, saying it contradicted the Liberal government’s carefully crafted brand of reconciliatory and progressive politics. Other observers were simply surprised by his handling of the protest.

“I’ve never seen him give that kind of cynical or shut-down response,” said Mark Calzavara, a member of the advocacy group Council of Canadians, who captured the comments on his phone. Calzavara was also raising awareness about the First Nations community.

Trudeau was speaking at a so-called Laurier Club event, which are Liberal Party fundraisers attended solely by major donors who give $1,500 or more.

On Thursday, Trudeau apologized for his comments to the protester and to the broader First Nations community.

“From time to time I’m in situations where people are expressing concerns or protesting a particular thing, and I always try to be respectful and I always try to engage with them in a positive way,” Trudeau told reporters in Halifax.

“Last night I lacked respect towards them and I apologize for that.”

Any funds that the protesters contributed in order to gain access to the event will be refunded, he added.

“They wanted to express their concerns about an issue and I do take that seriously and I apologize to them.”

The rejection by Chief Turtle comes after a medical treatment centre in the community promised by Ottawa lags behind schedule.

In November 2017, then-Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott announced that Ottawa would provide $170,000 to fund a feasibility study for a long-term treatment centre in Grassy Narrows, as well as provide further funding to “design, build and operate” the facility. It also promised a treatment centre in the Wabaseemoong, or Whitedog, First Nation that has had similar mercury poisonings.

The facility in Grassy Narrows, designed to hold around 20 beds, was meant to begin construction in the fall of 2018, but has not yet broken ground. One person familiar with the matter said that in discussions with the community in December, Philpott said she expected to project to get underway around June of this year, already months behind its initial start date.

Members of the Grassy Narrows and Whitedog First Nations have been found to have uncommonly high levels of mercury in their blood stream, largely from eating fish from the English-Wabigoon river system. Mercury is often carried in fish, particularly white fish species like walleye, and it “bioaccumulates” — meaning it is often passed down from one generation to the next through childbirth, and is nearly impossible to rid from the body.

Sufferers of mercury poisoning have been known to have learning disabilities, blurred vision and difficulty balancing, among other ailments.

The rough cost of the Grassy Narrows treatment centre is estimated at around $17 million, but due to the inter-generational existence of mercury the community is calling on Ottawa to provide maintenance and services to the facility over a 30-year period, for a total of roughly $88 million.

Chief Turtle of Grassy Narrows said the community needs to have the money put into a trust to ensure that future governments don’t suddenly take away the promised funding.

“I acknowledge Trudeau’s apology, but more importantly he needs to deliver on his government’s promise to build a Home and Treatment Centre so our mercury survivors can be cared for with dignity,” Turtle said.

Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the prime minister’s comments were “completely unacceptable and offensive,” and called on Trudeau to visit the affected communities in order to “see the impacts of the mercury contamination firsthand.”

Opposition members of parliament also lashed out against Trudeau for his remarks.

“What a smug, mean, aloof ass,” NDP MP Charlie Angus said on Twitter. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel called Trudeau “smug” and “arrogant,” while NDP leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted, “Instead of showing respect for people fighting for clean water & funding, Trudeau sides with his rich donors to get a laugh.”

Grassy Narrows is located about 100 km north of Kenora, Ont.

Japanese researchers have been studying patients in Grassy Narrows for decades, and have found residents of the community to display symptoms of Minamata disease, named after a small Japanese town where 900 people died as a result of eating fish tainted with mercury.

In December, a report found that mercury poisoning of the local river system was causing a number of health issues for youth in the community, particularly pregnant women, including anemia and attention deficit disorder.