Press Release: Grassy Narrows River Run 2016: Healthy river, healthy people!

The Anishnaabe community of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) has asserted its sovereignty over its traditional territories (north of Kenora, ON) for time immemorial. The Women's Drum Group in that community has successfully maintained the longest-running blockade of illegal logging in Canadian history, all through the leadership of grandmothers and women. 

 

Grassy Narrows, as many of you will know, is well known for something else - the dumping of murderous amounts of mercury into its watershed by local pulp mills in the 1960s, which triggered an ongoing health crisis that the Ontario government has never responsibly addressed. 

 

This spring, members of the Grassy Narrows community will be traveling 1700 km to Toronto to demand that Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario government take action to clean up the rivers they allowed to be poisoned (and took no action to remedy). This will be the fourth River Run, a mass action in Toronto to assert Grassy Narrows' sovereignty and demand accountability from the Ontario government.

 

Please join us in Toronto at Queen's Park on Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 12 noon. Lunch will be provided - please let us know of any accessibility or other needs. Please visit the Facebook page for the event here. There will be speaking events in Toronto during the week building up to the mass action at Queen's Park. 

 

If you are travelling from outside of Toronto, please organize a local contingent! We can provide some material support to help you get to Toronto, if needed. Please email nathan.prier@gmail.com with any questions you might have.

 

 

In solidarity,

 

 

The Grassy Narrows River Run 2016 Support Committee