Grassy Narrows: The right to live and raise a family in a healthy and safe environment

Reproductive Justice is not only about the right to decide whether or when to have children. 

It’s also about having the conditions necessary to raise those children safely and with dignity.

Those conditions include healthy land, clean water, and the right of communities to determine how their environment is treated and cared for.

So, on this National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we’re asking: What does environmental justice have to do with Reproductive Justice?

The people of Grassy Narrows First Nation have lived with the consequences of industrial mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon River system for decades. 

Mercury contamination continues to affect the health of people, families, livelihoods and the community.

A 2022 study estimated that 90 per cent of the community has symptoms of mercury poisoning.

The right to have a family cannot be separated from the right to live in a healthy environment.

Reproductive Justice involves:

• The right not to have children
• the right to have children
• The right to decide how and when to have children

Environmental Justice involves:

• the right to clean water
• the right to healthy land
• the right to live free from environmental contamination

And both involve:

• the right to raise children safely
• the right of communities to have a say in decisions affecting their environment and future

Mercury contamination doesn’t stay in the river.

It affects people’s ability to live, work, eat, parent and grow up healthy.

Among children and youth in Grassy Narrows, researchers found:

• Children were twice as likely not to thrive and to have emotional/behavioural problems.
• They were three times as likely to have at least one condition that may affect school performance.
• Children whose mothers ate fish at least weekly during pregnancy were four times as likely to have a learning disability, nervous system disorder, or other condition affecting school performance.
• They were three times as likely not to be thriving.

The report links these differences to maternal fish consumption during pregnancy, reflecting the intergenerational effects of mercury contamination.

The impacts of mercury exposure are devastating. 

More than 40% of adolescents in Grassy Narrows were reported by their mothers to have attempted suicide.

The youth suicide rate was reported to be three times higher than in other First Nations communities in Canada.

Researchers found evidence linking these outcomes to mercury exposure across three generations.

Across generations, Grassy Narrows people have fought back against the forces that have harmed their community, and led powerful movements for Indigenous sovereignty and the protection of their territory.

Their organizing has won major victories.

15 MILLION TREES SAVED

• Their 20+ year logging blockade has helped prevent industrial logging on their territory and inspired Indigenous land defence movements across Turtle Island.

10-YEAR LOGGING BAN

• In 2023, Ontario extended a 10-year ban on industrial logging in the Grassy Narrows area.

MERCURY CARE

• Grassy Narrows’ organizing has helped secure commitments to clean up the river and build a Mercury Care Home and Treatment Centre in the community.

The fight for mercury justice is ongoing.

Environmental Justice is both a reconciliation and Reproductive Justice issue. 

Reconciliation means addressing the conditions that shape whether Indigenous communities can live, parent and thrive safely.

For Grassy Narrows, that means:

END THE POLLUTION
Stop the Dryden mill and mining and nuclear waste plans that threaten the community.

RESTORE WHAT HAS BEEN DAMAGED
Restore the community and way of life from the damage caused by mercury.

RESPECT SELF-DETERMINATION
Support Grassy Narrows’ right to determine its own future.

The right to have a family is inseparable from the right to live in a healthy environment.