Federal government ends NunatuKavut’s bid for Indigenous rights

The federal government has ended a years-long process to negotiate Indigenous rights and self-determination with the NunatuKavut Community Council, an organization that says it represents about 6,000 Inuit in southern and central Labrador.

According to a Tuesday statement from NunatuKavut, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty informed the council in a letter on Sept. 4 that the federal government was terminating its Recognition of Indigenous Rights and Self-Determination negotiations.

“[NunatuKavut Community Council] is a strong and modern Inuit government that remains committed to the recognition of our rights and the advancement of our people’s well-being,” the statement read.

The council said it was not given substantive reasons for the decision.

The federal government has reviewed submissions from NunatuKavut, historical and legal analysis, expert reviews and discussions with the council, said Jennifer Cooper, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

The evidence provided by NunatuKavut did not meet “court-established tests for Indigenous rights and title,” Cooper said.

She said her department has offered to meet with NunatuKavut to discuss its findings in detail.

NunatuKavut’s leaders have said its group’s members are of mixed ancestry who primarily come from communities south of Churchill River, and are descendants of Inuit in the region.

They argue their members are the inheritors of a 1765 treaty between Inuit and the British Crown.

The group does not have a modern comprehensive land claim agreement, and the council has acknowledged that relatively few of its members speak Inuktitut.

The federal government has never recognized NunatuKavut as an Indigenous group capable of holding rights under Section 35 of the Constitution.

That changed in 2018, when Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett began talks with the group.

In September 2019, Canada and NunatuKavut signed a memorandum of understanding that recognized the group as an “Indigenous collective capable of holding section 35 Aboriginal rights.”

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. welcomed last week’s reversal by the federal government, adding that discussions that involve Inuit rights, self-determination and governance must be in the authority of “recognized Inuit rights holders.”

In a Sept. 8 statement on Facebook, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami called NunatuKavut a “fraudulent collective,” adding such groups undermine Inuit and other Indigenous Peoples and can divert funding intended for Inuit.

The Labrador-based Nunatsiavut Government released a statement as well, saying NunatuKavut’s claims to Inuit identity are not recognized by Inuit or the Innu Nation.

“Inuit identity is not something that can be self-declared — it is affirmed by Inuit, grounded in our culture and history,” Nunatsiavut president Johannes Lampe said in the statement.

NunatuKavut maintains that it is “appalling that the minster of Crown-Indigenous relations would bend to pressure from other Indigenous groups on the denial of our claim.”

“We are Inuit. We come from Inuit. That will never change,” reads NunatuKavut’s Tuesday statement.