Nunavik’s MP wants inquiry into dog-killings

TASIUJAQ — It wasn’t the official government apology Nunavik leaders had been waiting for, but Nunavik’s Liberal member of parliament, Guy St-Julien, offered his own personal apology for the killing of sled dogs in Nunavik 50 years ago.

“I’m offering my apologies,” St-Julien told Makivik Corporation’s annual general meeting last week in Tasiujaq. “We’ve never received an explanation from the departments concerned.”

St-Julien said he would table a motion before the House of Commons asking for a federal inquiry into the killing of sled dogs from 1950 to 1975.

He also said his office was preparing petitions to call for justice on this issue. These will be distributed to all Nunavik communities.

Two years ago, Makivik and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association lodged official complaints with Canada and Quebec over their governments’ “extermination program” of sled dogs from 1950 to 1975.

The two birthright organizations for Inuit in Nunavik and on Baffin Island had asked the federal government for a joint public inquiry into the “government-ordered” dog killing.

“I can never forget those two dogs I was playing with when they were taken to the area where they would be killed,” recalled one man at a Makivik gathering three years ago. “It looks like there was an attempt at genocide when our dogs were killed, an attempt to annihilate us.”

Makivik wanted Quebec to hold a separate provincial inquiry, and later carried out 200 interviews with residents about dog killing in Nunavik.

Many Inuit elders say their traditional way of life abruptly changed when government officials killed off their sled dogs.

The dogs were shot, ostensibly to control canine diseases such as rabies and distemper, and also to reduce numbers of loose dogs in fledging communities in the Baffin region and in Northern Quebec.

Until snowmachines became common many years later, hunters with no dog teams had trouble providing their families with food, and quickly became dependant on handouts and government assistance to meet their daily needs.

St-Julien also promised his support to Nunavimmiut in defending provions in their offshore agreement that gives them a constititionally guaranteed share of fish quotas off Baffin Island.