Winnipeg Free Press
Human rights watchdog backs Ont. First Nation
April 14, 2007 By Joe Paraskevas
A northwestern Ontario First Nation that has battled industrial development on its traditional land for decades has caught the attention of one of the world's most prominent human rights organizations.
A team of Canadian and foreign researchers from Amnesty International will visit the Grassy Narrows band next week to examine the effects of industrial development on the 1,000-member First Nation.
"The Government of Ontario has made decisions impacting the community's use of the land with little or no meaningful consultation with Grassy Narrows," Amnesty International said in a statement released this week. "Demonstrations of community opposition to provincial decisions have been ignored."
In a statement last January, Grassy Narrows members called for "a moratorium on further industrial activity in our traditional territory," until the federal and Ontario governments obtained community consent for future projects.
Grassy Narrows is located about 80 kilometres north of Kenora. The band's traditional land covers about 6,500 square kilometres, according to Amnesty International documents.
In the 1970s, the Grassy Narrows band bore the effects of mercury poisoning in the river system that nurtured its commercial fishery. Reed Ltd., a Dryden-based pulp-and-paper company was found to have dumped mercury-contaminated effluent into the river system between 1962 and 1970.
The discovery virtually shut down the Grassy Narrows fishery.
The band has also clashed with governments and business over forestry practices on its land. Amnesty International claims about 50 per cent of the band's territory is deforested and the provincial government continues to issue logging licences.
joe.paraskevas@freepress.mb.ca
