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Ontario's mercury response: a debate
Between 1962 and 1970, natives in two northwest Ontario communities sat down to daily meals of poison. Their staple food — fish — had record-high levels of mercury from a chemical plant up the river. Debate still rages over just how sick the mercury has made the people of Grassy Narrows and Whitedog reserves. There is no doubt, however, that the lingering pollution was a disaster for the natives and the lodge owners who had employed them as fishing guides. Their source of food and jobs destroyed, the bands endured years of alcoholism and despair, government neglect and, finally, healing.
Program: Morningside
Broadcast Date: April 27, 1977
Guest(s): George Hutchison, Frank Miller
Host: Harry Brown
Interviewer: Maxine Crook
Duration: 22:21
Last updated: January 30, 2012
Page consulted on May 10, 2013
All Clips from this Topic
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More than 500 northwest Ontario Indians discover they've been eating m...
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Secret documents show that Ontario's mercury contamination is as grave...
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The second part of the As It Happens documentary, A Clear and Present ...
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Native leaders talk about the victims of mercury poisoning they saw on...
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Canadian officials say the natives are in no danger but visiting Japan...
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The Fifth Estate's Warner Troyer probes the plight of people on Grassy...
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One year after Ontario is accused of downplaying the poisoning, Barbar...
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An in-depth examination of the Wabigoon River mercury contamination an...
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The fish are poisoned but the English-Wabigoon waterway remains open t...
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George Hutchison, co-author of Grassy Narrows, takes on Ontario Health...
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Unemployment and despair lead to a host of new problems.
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Government attempts to help instead bring violent death and misery.
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Rays of hope are seen in community that, for a long time, has been a v...
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Sixteen years after poison in the river destroyed their way of life, n...
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Former troublemakers at Grassy Narrows have become part of the solutio...
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A gas sniffer suspected of killing one OPP officer and wounding anothe...
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Mercury continues to make natives sick, says the Japanese doctor who m...
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Between 1962 and 1970, natives in two northwest Ontario communities sa...