Muskrat Falls protest today in Ottawa
Demonstrators to ask Mckenna to drink ‘symbolic methylmercury-contaminated water’
This afternoon, supporters of the Labrador Land Protectors are gathering at Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna’s office to protest the Muskrat Falls project.
They’ll bring with them bottles of “symbolic methylmercurycontaminated water” and ask the minister if she would drink it. The demonstration was organized by the Ontario-muskrat Solidarity Coalition.
In a written statement, the group wrote that its members and supporters are demonstrating to contrast Mckenna’s support for the Minamata Convention on Mercury “while the Liberal-supported Muskrat Falls Megadam threatens Indigenous people in Labrador with Methylmercury Poisoning.”
Canada ratified the Minamata Convention — a global treaty to reduce mercury emissions and to protect the environment and human health — in April.
Group spokesman Matthew Behrens was quoted in the statement saying the group is demanding that Mckenna
take the Minamata Convention seriously “and take a stand against the methylmercury poisoning of people downstream
of Muskrat Falls.”
“She must put her words into action and compel her government to withdraw its $9.2-billion investment in Muskrat Falls unless there is 100 per cent proof that no methylmercury poisoning will occur if the dam goes online.”
Today’s demonstration is taking place three weeks after members of Labrador Land Protectors were arrested on Parliament Hill while attempting to go into the House of Commons with pictures of people, mostly children, whose lives they say are at most risk of methylmercury poisoning.
“(Catherine Mckenna) must put her words into action and compel her government to withdraw its $9.2-billion investment in Muskrat Falls unless there is 100 per cent proof that no methylmercury poisoning will occur if the dam goes online.” Matthew Behrens, Ontario-muskrat Solidarity Coalition