ottawa –
The federal government plans to apologize to Nunavik’s Inuit for killing sled dogs from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s.
In his opening remarks at the Inuit Crown Partnership Committee meeting in Ottawa on Friday, Gary Ananda, Crown and Indigenous Relations Minister, said the government was preparing to issue an apology in Nunavik, an Inuit region in northern Quebec. He said that
The actual date of the apology is still being finalized, but it could be as early as the end of the month.
Anandasangari told the audience that while the apology would not erase the past, she hoped it would provide some comfort to survivors “as we rebuild this very important relationship.” .
For many years, Makibic Corporation has Inuit of Nunavik — called for improvements and recognition from the federal and state governments of the harm caused by dog slaughter.
Quebec has already apologized for its role in the killing.
A 2010 report by former Quebec Superior Court judge Jean-Jacques Croteau found that Quebec provincial police killed more than 1,000 dogs “with no regard for their importance to Inuit families.”
Croteau said the federal government’s role in the issue had been a failure to intervene or condemn the actions.
“Federal employees and civil servants were unable to intervene in a fiduciary capacity on behalf of the Government of Canada when Quebec government employees and civil servants radicalized their operations,” Croteau wrote in the report. did.
“They didn’t investigate, they didn’t ask owners about the significance of the dogs they tried to kill, and they didn’t ask whether the dogs they tried to kill posed a real, serious and present danger to people.”
In 2011, then-Quebec Premier Jean Charest formally apologized to Nunavik’s Inuit for the province’s role and settled with Makivik for $3 million to promote and protect Inuit language and culture. did.
In 2019, the federal government apologized to Nunavut’s Inuit for the RCMP’s role in the killing of sled dogs in Nunavut.
The Qikiqtani Truth Commission’s final report on the issue found that hundreds of dogs were shot and killed by the RCMP for fear of letting them run loose and spreading disease.
__
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
