Time to stop the injury and insult

When the g ove rnment issues mining permits behind our backs, that’s not reconciliation, that’s destruction.

RANDY FOBISTER GRASSY NARROWS CHIEF

If there’s a shorthand expression in Ontario for the betrayal of Indigenous citizens, their rights, health and well-being, it is probably two words: Grassy Narrows.

The Northern Ontario community bedevilled by mercury pollution in the English River system for a half-century has heard enough empty promises over the decades to last an eternity.

In Grassy Narrows, mercury contamination in fish — the result of dumping by a pulp and paper company, dating back to 1962 — continues to poison people.

Before that, in the 1920s, construction of a hydroelectric dam flooded Grassy Narrows, destroying wild-rice harvesting areas and burial grounds. Since that, there has been extensive clearcutting by logging companies.

Now, with the Ontario government granting nine new mining permits in the traditional territory of Grassy Narrows without consulting the local community, the injury and insult keeps on coming.

This week, Grassy Narrows First Nation (Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek) applied to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for the mining permits to be cancelled and a declaration issued that the Ford government “breached the honour of the Crown.”

Indigenous plaintiffs tend to do well in court and there’s increasing legal recognition that treaty rights must be a fundamental consideration in how such lands are governed.

“The government isn’t working with us, they are working against us,” says Grassy Narrows Chief Randy Fobister. “They need to stop logging and mining so the land can heal.”

The legal action asks the court to cancel the permits, which were issued between September 2019 and February 2021 and which the plaintiffs say violate the Indigenous law of Grassy Narrows, Ontario’s own laws and the Constitution of Canada.

The community said it learned only within the past six months that permits had been issued.

“When the government issues mining permits behind our backs, that’s not reconciliation, that’s destruction,” Fobister told CBC News.

It is perhaps a sign of how lightly those rights are taken that anyone can make online claims on Indigenous territories for a small fee without having visited the land or consulted the people who live there.

Preservation of the land is an essential part of reconciliation and healing, Fobister has said.

“Good land will heal our people from all the damage the government has been pushing on us like mercury and industry. That is reconciliation for us. Let us use our land to heal. I invite Ontario to join us on this path.”

It is a reasonable and patient request made to a government not typically respectful of such values.

Dave Smith, parliamentary assistant to Ontario’s minister of Indigenous affairs, told the legislature this week, under questioning by New Democrat Peter Tabuns, that “the exploration activity is not actually mining activity.

“Mining is a multi-step process that we have to go through and it begins with the exploration permit,” he said.

Mining claims on Grassy Narrows territory have spiked in recent years from a few hundred to several thousand and Smith attributed it “to an increase in mineral commodity prices.”

In other words, it’s not mining yet. And, yes, the gold rush is on.

Tabuns, who called Smith’s response one of the weakest he’d ever heard, said the people of Grassy Narrows have “lived through decades of pain” and the “Ford government is plowing ahead to do even more damage.”

The Grassy Narrows community has resisted the incursions for decades. Twenty years ago, it blockaded logging. In 2018, it passed a land declaration prohibiting industrial and mining activity.

“We assert our inherent sovereignty and our inalienable right to self-determination on our Indigenous homeland,” the declaration said.

“Our land and our rights are given by the Creator and only the Creator can take them away.”

While that faith abides, the length of the fight is wearying.

“How many times must our people fight off these attacks on our health and our way of life?” Fobister asked. “It is long past time for Ontario to listen to Grassy Narrows and to walk with us on the path of protection, healing and reconciliation.”

While Indigenous peoples were responsible stewards of the land and waters for millennia, the community says, it has taken just a couple of centuries for modernity to jeopardize the future of the planet — in few places more than their arboreal home.

Grassy Narrows wants Ontario to act quickly to reverse course in order that its ravaged people and land may heal.

It would not be the first time the Ford government has performed a policy pirouette.

But it should be the fastest.