The tweet was in response to an interview with Newfoundland NDP Leader Earl McCurdy, who said that the government has a responsibility to remove any existing vegetation and soil from the immediate flooding area to prevent contamination, and added that failure to do so would mean that the project wasn't safe in the first place. "If we can't afford to clear the reservoir, we can't afford to do the project," McCurdy said during an interview on Newfoundland TV. Responses to Whalen's dismissal of the issue were swift: an Ontario NDP MP said that he was mocking "[I]ndigenous people facing mercury contamination," which Whalen called "ridiculous," and Labrador residents, including a doctor, argued that Whalen was making light of a very serious issue.
"Do you really mean to call Inuit and Innu concerns "ridiculous"? Think about what that means, and the company it puts you in," Andrew Bresnahan wrote. Whalen later tweeted back that he only used "ridiculous" in the context of McCurdy's comment, not the actual concerns of Indigenous people. Whalen notes in his tweets that he was trying to find a compromise in which surrounding residents could "compensate" for the changes in toxicity levels of the water, which mirrored a statement from the president of Nalcor (the company responsible for constructing the dam) given to the Canadian Press last week. "For fish in the reservoir, I think we would generally expect levels to rise high enough that we would consider advising people not to eat fish that often," Nalcor's Gilbert Bennett said. "We're not saying it's not safe. It's entirely safe to eat. The only question is taking appropriate steps to mitigate the risk."
During the most recent question period, NDP MP Romeo Saganash brought up the tweets to Parliament, which was met with a reassurance from Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment John Wilkinson that the government would make a choice that was "best for the health and safety of Canadians." In the last 24 hours, a small group of protesters have breached the surrounding area and attempted to disrupt the construction site where the Muskrat Falls dam is located. Police are still engaged in a standoff with the protesters, and road closures are in effect for the area. This comes just a week after nine protesters were arrested by the RCMP for attempting to blockade access to the site. Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.