RELEASE: Landmark legal victory could end clearcut logging in Grassy Narrows‏
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Aug. 17, 2011

(Toronto) - Yesterday the Grassy Narrows First Nation (Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek) won a major victory in their more than decade long battle to stop clearcut logging in Grassy Narrows' traditional territory.

Grassy Narrows Chief and Council welcome the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to protect the rights promised to the Anishinaabe from interference by Ontario.

Madam Justice Mary-Anne Sanderson's decision, over 300 pages in length, finds that the Government of Ontario does not have the power to take away the rights in Treaty 3 by authorizing development including logging and mining.

Grassy Narrows women boycott Weyerhaeuser Corp and the logging industry

The Deets:
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
The Buchwald Room Millennium Library (2nd floor)
251 Donald Street
Winnipeg, MB

The Call Out:

"The forest is so affected by paper and [we want] for people to make a knowledgeable decision on the paper products that they use, and if it comes from Weyerhaeuser...for them to know that it is destroying our people, our way of life." -Judy da Silva of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nation)

Several organizations and individuals demanded stricter regulations of mercury emissions at a press conference Tuesday, saying the Canadian and Ontario governments still aren’t doing enough to prevent mercury poisoning among Grassy Narrows residents.

Between 1962 and 1970, the Grassy Narrows community was contaminated when the Dryden paper mill dumped 20,000 pounds (almost 10 tones) of mercury into the Wabigoon River, which was a source of drinking water and food for First Nations people who lived only 130 kilometres downstream from the mill.

As Stephen Harper attempts to position himself as a champion of maternal and infant health, the Council of Canadians joins the Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong First Nations in denouncing the long term health impacts of mercury poisoning in Northwestern Ontario which have passed from one generation to another as a result of pregnant mothers eating contaminated fish.

“The mills take from our forest, and then give us back disease and sickness and death. “Our people have suffered for 40 years from mercury poisoning, and now this sickness is being passed on to our children in the womb. We must stop the mills from destroying our forests, our water and our culture for the survival of all people.”  Judy Da Silva, a grassroots mother and blockader from Grassy Narrows."