Hélène Laverdière, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic, issued the following statement : 

KENORA - On Monday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh joined NDP Critic for Indigenous Youth, Charlie Angus, in Grassy Narrows First Nation, where they heard first-hand about the impact of mercury contamination in their water.   A mill upstream in Dryden dumped mercury into the English-Wabigoon River in the 1960s and early 1970s. The contamination forced the closure of a commercial fishery, devastating the community's economy. Fifty years later the residents in the community can't drink the water or eat fish caught in the river system, and many are dealing with the complications of mercury poisoning.

While Canada marks Gender Equality Week, women continue to bear the brunt of decades of successive Liberal and Conservative government failures to invest in the systematic problems that undermine gender equality. Women would have more to celebrate if the Liberals actually got to work and fixed the fundamental inequality that remains all too prevalent in the lives of those who identify as women, with many of these challenges faced more deeply by senior, racialized, and Indigenous women.