Two Indigenous groups in Labrador are calling out the province’s decision to host a residential school system apology event in Cartwright tomorrow—and are calling for Indigenous Affairs Minister Lisa Dempster’s resignation.
Dempster and NunatuKavut Community Council President Todd Russell will be on hand in Cartwright tomorrow along with the Premier.
The Nunatsiavut Government is expressing its “utmost disappointment” over the province’s decision to make the apology to an “unrecognized Indigenous group” before a similar apology is made to Labrador Inuit residential school survivors and their families.
The decision comes despite concerns already raised with Premier Andrew Furey and Dempster by the Nunatsiavut Government.
Nunatsiavut President Johannes Lampe says with tomorrow’s apology, the provincial government is telling Inuit that they are not respected and it exposes “the deep roots of colonialism” still affecting them to this day.
The Nunatsiavut Government does not recognize NCC as Inuit, and President Lampe is calling for Lisa Dempster’s immediate removal from her role as Minister Responsible for Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation.
The Innu Nation meanwhile says it strongly supports the Nunatsiavut Government’s concerns about Premier Andrew Furey’s use of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as an opportunity to lend what it calls “further unfounded legitimacy to the NunatuKavut Community Council.”
ITK Does Not Recognize NunatuKavut
(ITK President Natan Obed and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Nain. Photo via Nunatsiavut Government)
It’s not only the Nunatsiavut Government that doesn’t recognize NCC as an Inuit group.
In 2021, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a global Inuit organization, wrote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that it does not recognize NCC as an “Inuit” organization.
In the letter, ITK President Natan Obed called on the federal government to exclude NCC from accessing federal Inuit-specific policies, programs and initiatives intended to benefit Inuit, and to “refrain from including NCC communities in any future federal Inuit-specific budget allocations or Inuit-Crown processes.”
The letter, written two years ago, went on to say that the archeological and historical evidence suggests that the territory claimed by NCC has never been permanently occupied by Inuit.
NCC Responds
The NunatuKavut Community Council meanwhile is denouncing as “harmful lies and hurtful statements” the latest statements contained in the Nunatsiavut Government’s release.
President Todd Russell accuses the Nunatsiavut Government of using “lies, innuendo, lateral violence and hurtful statements” in denouncing NCC.
Russell calls the upcoming provincial apology a “profoundly important day and a time of healing” and NCC will continue to support and care for its people and lift them up.
Nunatsiavut President Johannes Lampe is defending the contents of their release.
Johannes Lampe, President, Nunatsiavut Government.
“Labrador Inuit will not be happy being called ‘liars'” says Lampe.
He calls the provincial government’s decision to offer an apology to NCC first, “an insult” and says it sets Truth and Reconciliation “a few steps back.”
He says the relationship they have with government has been put back, and there can be no reconciliation or healing from a process begun more than 500 years ago.
Government Response
(Lisa Dempster, file photo.)
The Department of Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation says it remains committed to delivering apologies to former students of the residential school system and “will continue to engage with other Indigenous Governments and Organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador.”
