For twenty-two years politicians and businessmen pushed for the Adams Mine landfill as a solution to Ontario’s garbage disposal crisis. This plan to dump millions of tonnes of waste into the fractured pits of the Adams Mine prompted five separate civil resistance campaigns by a rural region of 35,000 in Northern Ontario. Unlikely Radicals traces the compelling history of the First Nations people and farmers, environmentalists and miners, retirees and volunteers, Anglophones and Francophones who stood side by side to defend their community with mass demonstrations, blockades, and non-violent resistance.
The book provides powerful proof that principled action can be guided by basic rules: “the democratic rights of citizens must be rooted in access to fair public process backed up by an compromised public service.”
A Grisham-like political thriller with the feel-good accents of a Frank Capra movie.