Ontario has broken their own rules and granted 8 mining permits to 3 companies on Grassy Narrows Territory without even notifying the community. At the same time, Ontario is starting to plan renewed industrial logging on Grassy Narrows land. These violations would compound the harm that mercury, clearcut logging, hydro dams and residential schools have already done to Grassy Narrows lives, lands, and way of life. Grassy Narrows is fighting back.
Last Monday Grassy Narrows signed an agreement committing Canada to pay to build and run a Mercury Care Home in our community for the next 30 years. This will be a place for our people who are suffering from mercury poisoning to get dignified care near their loved ones. This is an important and hard-fought step forward for Grassy Narrows, but our fight is not over. Our many generations fight for mercury justice, for self-determination, and to protect the sources of life will go on and grow stronger as we rise with the growing movement for our common future.
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.
Grassy Narrows people with higher long-term mercury exposure were far more likely to die early according to an authoritative new study published Monday evening in the Lancet Planetary Health scientific journal.
The study is the first to directly support Grassy Narrows’ long held belief that their people are dying young because of the ongoing impact of mercury poisoning which started in 1962 when an upstream paper mill began dumping 10 tonnes of mercury into Grassy Narrows’ English-Wabigoon River system. Only 14% of Grassy Narrows people currently get compensation from the Mercury Disability Board.
