Judge: No systematic dog slaughter in Nunavik

There was no systematic elimination of sled dogs during the 1950s and 1960s in Nunavik, a new report says.

“Nothing in the file leads me to believe that it occurred,” said retired judge Jean-Jacques Croteau in his 22-page interim report on the allegations concerning the slaughter of sled dogs, which was prepared for Makivik Corp. and Quebec. Download the Croteau report here.

“The allegation of a fact does not necessarily mean that it has been proven. At the time the federal authority would have supposedly given the order to destroy Inuit sled dogs, it was sending to Nunavik more than 3,000 doses, as established hereabove, to immunize the dogs and prevent the spreading of dog’s diseases,” Croteau said.

But Croteau does blame the federal and provincial governments for misusing an agricultural law to justify the killing of sled dogs and then leaving Inuit to deal with the loss of their means of transportation.

Croteau found that officials were wrong when they used the agricultural law that forbid loose dogs to justify the killings.

“I do not see how a stray sled dog in the Arctic territory of northern Quebec (now Nunavik) could be injurious to agriculture,” he said. “The evidence indicates that northern Quebec Inuit were never consulted regarding the application of the Agricultural Abuses Act, a law totally inappropriate for them and in no manner supporting the exercise of their aboriginal rights.”

About 1,000 dogs were killed and 75 hunters affected by the governments’ actions in the 1950s and 60s, the report finds.

“Several dog owners and their family were left without mean of subsistence. Others could be helped by family members and neighbours. Others felt devastated. They gave up and started to drink, as reported by several children of these owners,” Croteau said.

After examining all the evidence, Croteau decided the federal and provincial governments, whose agents killed the dogs, also acted negligently towards Inuit.

“I have not other choice than to declare that there was a breach on the part of Canada and Quebec of their fiduciary obligations towards the Inuit,” he said. “On numerous occasions I asked the owners and their children if the federal or provincial authorities had offer some help following the slaughtering of their dogs. Each time they gave a negative answer.”

The Inuit and Qallunaat had two ways of thinking about the dogs— for Inuit they were regarded as an essential form of transportation, but for Qallunaat, the dogs were pests.

Croteau said there was a great deal of mutual misunderstanding which could have been avoided, if the RCMP and the SQ had taken the time to get to know Inuit culture and speak to Inuit.

The police would have been wiser to avoid infringing on the aboriginal rights of sled dog owners and negotiate with them “instead of trying to impose their rules (the law) and trying to “educate” the Inuit in order for them to acknowledge their rules,” he said.

After the RCMP pulled out of Nunavik, “actions and behaviours went overboard” under the Sûrété du Québec provincial police force.

“It was beyond understanding. The officers displayed a total lack of awareness of Inuit fundamental rights, of their culture and the importance of the dogs for their subsistence,” Croteau said.

Kangiqsujuaq and Kuujjuaq were the two settlements where the highest number of killings occurred, according to the report.

Two witnesses at a public hearing in Kangiqsujuaq said two provincial officers arrived one day by seaplane. They came out of the plane without saying a word to anyone and started chasing stray dogs in the village. “They killed 32 of them and simply left thereafter without any explanation,” the report notes.

From Ivujivik to Kangiqsualujjuaq, sled dog owners and their families slowly gravitated into communities starting in 1959 and continuing into the 1960s. The dogs’ killing mainly took place during that period of time, the report says.

Documentary evidence shows that two disease outbreaks of rabies, canine distemper and canine virus hepatitis also occurred during that same period, it says.

A large part of the canine population was decimated by a disease outbreak that took place in 1959 and 1960 around Kuujjuaq. The same situation occurred on the Hudson Bay coast in 1961 and 1962— and officials did supply vaccines, the report says.

The report looked at all possible information regarding the alleged sled dog killings, including the 2005 brief that Makivik submitted to Quebec and the federal government, personal testimonies from Inuit and non-Inuit, the RCMP’s final report from 2006, legislation regarding loose dogs and the 2005 Makivik-produced video “Echo of the Last Howl.”

“Echo of the Last Howl,” on the killing of Inuit sled dogs during the 1950s and 60s, showed how the “burning pyramids of dogs” on the ice left an enduring legacy of pain and loss.

In the film, Makivik president Pita Aatami said the slaughter of Inuit dogs “reminded us of the wrongdoing to the Japanese” during the Second World War.

Then, Canadian residents and citizens of Japanese descent were declared “enemy aliens” and taken to internment camps for the duration of the war. All of their property and belongings were sold, without the owners’ consent. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese were given the option for “dispersal” to places and towns east of the Rocky Mountains, or “repatriation” to Japan.

On Sept. 22, 1988, the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement was signed, and in the House of Commons, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney acknowledged the government’s wrongful actions.

Ottawa also offered individual and community compensation to the Japanese Canadians.

What happens after the release of Croteau’s final report is unclear, but it appears to leave the door open to both an acknowledgement and compensation.