On September 18, thousands of people in Toronto joined Grassy Narrows First Nation members in a River Run rally and march, renewing the call for justice for decades of mercury poisoning. In May, a research study was published demonstrating that current sulphate emissions from the Dryden mill interact with mercury in the river to produce methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury. Leaders of Grassy Narrows are calling on the government of Ontario, Canada, to order a stop to the emissions.
While grief and anger were present, it was a beautiful event. Thousands of people filled Grange Park, which was transformed into a kind of festival, with free food and water for all, shade tents for elders and babies, and volunteers selling beautiful t-shirts and posters. Hundreds of schoolchildren came with their teachers. Speakers from Grassy Narrows told their community’s history, skilfully drawing connections between the colonial policies of the reserve system, the residential school system, and damaging industrial development. They honoured generations of resilience and resistance and envisioned a future of healthy land and healthy people. Speakers from supporting organizations named the forces of racism, colonialism, and capitalism that oppress Indigenous and other racialized peoples and envisioned a future of interconnected liberation. Youth from Grassy Narrows led the march filling the streets of downtown Toronto. Marchers’ placards, banners, and other forms of expression illustrated a multitude of overlapping visions for a better future for all. Delegations from unions, environmental groups, faith communities, anti-racist organizations and student groups walked alongside each other. One image imprinted on my mind is a young man wearing a keffiyeh dancing dabke steps, arm-in-arm with Indigenous youth in a round dance.
The powers that be did not see beauty in this event, but a threat. It was the presence of pro-Palestine demonstrators and one chant against the occupation that sparked complaints by some parents whose children had attended, then denunciations by politicians. The chant, “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime” – a statement supported by United Nations declarations and resolutions – was uncritically labelled “inflammatory, discriminatory and hateful” by Ontario’s Conservative premier. As Chief Rudy Turtle pointed out in a subsequent editorial, while the children of Grassy Narrows continue to be poisoned, Premier Ford “ignored our demands and mischaracterized what took place at our event.”
The whole ugly controversy makes me ponder the worldviews it reflects. Time after time, when oppressed people rise to demand equity and freedom, people with relative power and privilege react fearfully and angrily. Influenced by the capitalist logic of scarcity and competition and the much older colonial logic of dominance and exploitation, many see empowerment as a zero-sum game, assuming that the gains of one group must be at another’s expense.
I invite us to pray for the breaking open of hearts—our own and others. May we feel the ways in which our liberation is bound up with others. May we break free of violent narratives and imagine the safety, freedom, and flourishing that is only possible when we are all safe and free. May we invite others to join us in imagining better futures.