Mercury poisoning is our collective sin

Re Ontario commits to clean up mercury at Grassy Narrows, Feb. 14

How could we stand by and let men, women and children die from mercury poisoning for 50 years because they had nowhere else to go?

I rejoiced at our bringing in Syrian refugees without giving a single thought to what some aboriginal families are enduring daily, like watching their children die because we don’t care. It kind of makes one ashamed of being white and Canadian, because this is essentially the doing first of white Europeans and later on white Canadians.

But our current collective sin is shared by all Canadians (new, old and of all foreign origins). This is our collective debt. Those of us who have always had more than we ever needed and those of you who have known conditions perhaps even worse than First Nations now enjoy the good life, while those who were here before any of us are being allowed to die along with their children in a poisonous environment.

We live in a country where it appears everyone has constitutional rights re- gardless of race, colour, creed or religion — unless you’re indigenous. Then you get mercury poisoning instead. Randy Gostlin, Oshawa It was good to look at the front page of our newspaper Tuesday and read that our provincial government is going to do something about cleaning up the English-Wabigoon River system at long last. I know it is only because of the persistence of the Star that this is happening, but I wonder how many years will go by before the cleanup begins?

Good luck to the people of Grassy Narrows and White Dog. They have suffered much because of greed. Claudine Goller, Scarborough