OTTAWA, ON – Today the Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to Grassy Narrows to appeal their legal action for Treaty rights and against clearcut logging to the highest court.  The case challenges Ontario’s jurisdiction to award logging and mining licenses on a vast tract of Treaty 3 lands north of the English River (the Keewatin Lands). The case, called Keewatin v. MNR, has been winding its way through the courts for fourteen years.

However, Ontario continues to plan for clearcut logging throughout Grassy Narrows Territory and is currently seeking input on a new 10 year Forest Management Plan for Grassy Narrows Territory that includes many dozens of large clearcuts against Grassy Narrows’ will. The new plan is scheduled to take effect in April 2014.

“This decision is further proof that our concerns are valid and important,” said Joseph Fobister, one of the Grassy Narrows trappers who initiated the legal action.  “It is sad that Ontario continues to ignore us when we tell them that clearcut logging hurts our people.”

Scientific studies indicate that clearcut logging in boreal watersheds raises mercury levels in fish above the Health Canada limit for safe human consumption. Recent, clearcut logging in Grassy Narrows territory has exacerbated and prolonged the terrible health impacts of mercury poison that began when a paper mill upstream in Dryden dumped 20,000 pounds of mercury into Grassy Narrows’ river between 1962 and 1970.

“Our community has suffered for too long from the impacts of industry imposed on our people,” said Joseph Fobister.  “We cannot allow industry to further damage our way of life and our health by poisoning our water and destroying the forests that we depend on.”

In her 2011 ruling in favour of Grassy Narrows Ontario Superior Court Justice Sanderson had harsh words for Ontario’s approach to Treaty rights: “Ontario’s approach to this litigation, while pleasantly civil, was strongly adversarial.  Always focusing on its own proprietary rights, it downplayed the plain and clear reference in the Harvesting Clause to Canada. It characterized as a “mistake” what I have found to be [the Treaty Commissioner’s] deliberate attempt to protect the Harvesting Rights of the Ojibway…” [1603]