Police explanation sheds little light on dog slaughter

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

The killing of Inuit sled dogs was a legitimate part of the RCMP’s job, meant to protect communities from disease and danger, a federal committee heard this week.

The standing committee on aboriginal affairs and northern development started probing the sensitive issue of dog killings in the Arctic on Tuesday.

Nunavik Inuit leaders from the Makivik Corp. made a presentation suggesting that police were carrying out a secretive government policy to slaughter entire teams of sled dogs during the 1950s and 1960s.

But a police delegation defended the officers’ actions, saying the RCMP was stationed in the remote settlements of northern Quebec and the eastern Arctic to serve the Inuit, not hurt them.

“If the RCMP did anything wrong, I am here today to present my apologies,” said Chief Supt. Kevin Vickers, the director-general of the RCMP’s aboriginal police services branch. “Such actions are unacceptable.

“We’re in the communities to protect the communities, as we were in the past.”

But Vickers repeated several times that he had no evidence of a government policy ordering the systematic slaughter of Inuit sled dogs.

The lack of evidence didn’t stop a committee member from pushing for a full-fledged judicial inquiry into the dog killings.

Bernard Cleary, Bloc Québécois critic for aboriginal and northern affairs, planned to table a motion yesterday, demanding that the Liberal government appoint a superior court judge to hold hearings on what happened to the sled dogs during those two decades.

The government can reject the motion, even if it’s passed by a majority of the 12-person committee.

If approved, the government would appoint a judge by April 15. The appointed person would submit a report on the dog killings to the committee within three months.

Cleary attacked the police presentation, claiming it did little more than protect the RCMP and government’s reputation, instead of providing an accurate account of why so many sled dogs were killed.

“Your report seems too good to be true,” Cleary said. “You’re simply trying to cover your backs.”

Cleary added that the police shouldn’t be referring to Inuit testimony as “anecdotal.”

“They lost their livelihoods,” he said. “They lost their transportation. They lost their means to serve themselves.”

The police presentation was based on interviews with six officers working in the North during the time that Inuit dog teams were wiped out.

While scant on detail, police records suggest that both Inuit and RCMP dog teams were ravaged by disease sometime between 1950 and 1970.

But those numbers are based on what documents remain, after police destroyed other paperwork from northern detachments, without explanation.

Vickers, who worked as an officer in the Northwest Territories in the 1980s, admitted that his presentation was based on incomplete records.

He also conceded that the reasons for the killings might have been poorly explained at the time, leading the Inuit to view the shootings as “senseless and inexplicable.”

However, Vickers said it was only speculation to claim the dogs were killed to increase government control over the Inuit, as suggested by the Bloc Québécois and Inuit leaders.

During his own time in the North, Vickers oversaw the killing of dogs where he was stationed. But he said dogs were only shot at the request of the dog owners, or when the animals were sick.

Officers cared for the Inuit dogs, Vickers said, saying that he personally administered thousands of innoculations during that time period.

Vickers added that they even supplied puppies and dog food when needed by the Inuit.

Police found at least one ally in Roger Valley, a Liberal MP on the committee.

“To suggest that they’d go around shooting indiscriminately, I don’t believe that,” Valley said.

During the meeting, Makivik president Pita Aatami questioned why committee members would accept one police officer’s version of events, despite the conflicting accounts from hundreds of Inuit.

“You’re telling me that one person is right, and hundreds of Inuit are liars,” Aatami said in an interview after the meeting. “It’s a long time ago that this happened. But the elders are not just telling stories. It happened.We won’t rest until this is resolved.”

Members of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association were to make a presentation on the dog killings in the eastern Arctic yesterday.

Over the past year, the QIA has recorded elders recalling their memories of police shooting their dog teams in the Baffin communities decades ago.

Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Nunavut MP and the committee chair, said the memories of the dog killings were strong, even for Inuit who were children at the time of the dog killings.

She said Inuit didn’t have much control over their lives at the time, and were often confused by the actions of Qallunaat.

“Putting those two worlds together is often hard to understand,” she said. “I think our job is to find where the disconnect happened, and… [to be] hearing all sides of the story.

“In order for us to move forward, we have to understand what people went through.”