Thousands marched through the streets of Toronto to protest the situation in Grassy Narrows.


Grassy Narrows – advocating for change has been important to community healing from the trauma that is one of the social impacts of living with mercury poisoning. By the time Isaacs’ group reached


Toronto, many others had joined their caravan. Drum groups, elders, youth and children arrived from Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton, Guelph and Kitch- ener-Waterloo. Union members, students and other allies stood together to call for environmental justice.


EMPOWERING YOUTH


Isaacs has suffered from mercury poison- ing her entire life, and has watched her family and community suffer the effects as well. Symptoms can cause birth defects and cognitive delays, numbness and loss of co- ordination, general muscle weakness and


18 ETFO VOICE | SPRING 2025


deterioration, impaired speech, vision and hearing. Mercury poisoning can also lead to mental health struggles including depres- sion and anxiety. Isaacs estimates that about 90 per cent of people in the community live with depression. Suicide rates are higher than average, and many people feel helpless and hopeless. When Isaacs was 11 years old, she tried to


take her own life. Tankfully, she wound up in hospital, where she met leaders Judy Da Silva, Chickadee Richards and others who were doing advocacy work to support Mo- hawk people at the Oka crisis (1990). Tese women knew the struggles that Isaacs faced and took her under their wing. Da Silva and Richards were working with Grassy Narrows youth and knew how important activism was to empowering and affirming young people. Isaacs says she finally felt like she had power


RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES


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