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The father of the first of five people to die during the blastomycosis outbreak in Constance Lake First Nation is happy with the 79 recommendations from the coroner’s inquest.
Although Arhur Moore, whose son Luke was 43 when he died in November 2021 after being misdiagnosed with pneumonia, says the community will need to be "diligent" to make sure the 21-day inquest brings about change.
“Although the recommendations are non-binding, the people are awakened,” he said.
“It’s a very powerful statement.”
Five people died and dozens of others got sick from the fungal lung disease in the community of 800 during the fall of 2021 and winter of 2022.
Moore, a former chief of Constance Lake, said he was especially pleased with the recommendations calling for changes to the local health care system, including increased staffing at the community’s health centre and cultural awareness training for staff at the Notre Dame hospital in nearby Hearst.
“Understanding of First Nations culture, traditions, the way we speak,” he said.
“They have to understand that a bit more, so we can live together peacefully.”
Luke Moore’s cousin Michelle Daigle attended every day of the inquest.
“He was kind of that light within our family,” she remembered.
“As soon as Luke would come into the room, everybody would just be excited he was there.”
Now a professor specializing in Indigenous issues in the geography department at the University of Toronto, Daigle said she finds the recommendations a “starting point” for repairing relations between Constance Lake and the health care system.
She remembers talk of “subtle racism” and fear of going to the Hearst hospital when she was growing up in the First Nation in the 1980s and 1990s.
“This is just one way we can work toward accountability moving forward,” Daigle said.
She was also happy to see several recommendations calling for the clean-up of abandoned sawmill sites in the community “even if we don’t know for certain that those environmental conditions are directly related to blastomycosis.”
Daigle said the fact that Constance Lake has had “to live with” leftover piles of sawdust and logs that have contaminated local waters highlights the “injustices” the First Nation has faced over the decades.
Much of the Moore family lives near Wilmot Lake and Luke’s mother Elizabeth still wonders if it was from those shores that her son contracted blastomycosis.
She and her husband will be keenly observing the outcomes of the recommendations.
“And I’m going to keep watching out for this to see that the changes happen and occur, because it will be ever-lasting and long-lasting and it’s going to make a future for all people who live in Constance Lake First Nation,” she said.
“If we finally find the right people and we are being heard and action is taken.”
Gilles Bisson— who was an NDP MPP for the area for over 30 years, including during the beginning of the blastomycosis outbreak— said he hopes that the inquest finally gets the community concerns about the sawmill pollution heard at Queen’s Park.
“Part of the problem here is that there is a reluctance on the part of both industry and the ministry to act on these particular cases, especially when they are out of sight and out of mind,” he said.
“If this was happening in downtown Toronto or downtown Sudbury, probably more of a chance of it being addressed.”
Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin says now that the inquest is complete, it's his job to push the province and the forestry industry to clean-up old sawmill sites in Constance Lake. (Erik White/CBC)The current MPP for the area, Mushkegowuk-James Bay New Democrat Guy Bourgouin, said his job is to now push the Ontario government to act on the recommendations.
In particular, he wants to see the Ministry of Natural Resources move forward on the clean up of the pollution related to the forest industry.
“They’ve been asking for that for years, but it always fell on deaf ears,” said Bourgouin.
“It’s unacceptable that people have to lose their lives to get people moving on a situation like this.”
The former chief of Constance Lake, Ramona Sutherland, who was elected weeks before the outbreak began, said the inquest was traumatizing, but respectful.
Sutherland said she felt the jury was listening and the volume of recommendations speaks to the vast need for improvement.
The Ministry of Natural Resources did not reply to CBC’s request for comment, nor did Lecours Lumber, which currently operates a sawmill on land leased from Constance Lake First Nation.
The Ontario Ministry of Health said it is “currently reviewing the recommendations and will respond directly to the Office of the Chief Coroner.”
The area health unit, Northeastern Public Health, said in a statement that it is “taking the time to reflect on the outcomes” of the inquest.