RCMP Watch

(Canadian Press) - Quebec’s Inuit association and the provincial government are launching an inquiry into long-standing allegations RCMP officers slaughtered thousands of sled dogs in the province’s north during the 1950s and ’60s.

Inuit elders in Quebec’s Nunavik region claim the alleged killings targeted the Inuk way of life.

Two years ago, an RCMP report concluded there were no mass canine slaughters and that dogs were only shot for humanitarian and public health reasons.

After speaking to many elders over the years, the president of the association representing Quebec Inuit says he doesn’t buy the RCMP findings.

“For the RCMP to come out with a report to say that this never happened was an insult to the Inuit,” Pita Aatami of Makivik Corp. told The Canadian Press on Friday.

“They are saying the Inuit are liars.”

In Nunavik and Nunavut, many Inuit believe police officers and other white authority figures killed up to 20,000 sled dogs, nearly wiping out their primary means of transportation.

Last year, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association initiated a truth commission into accusations the RCMP decimated the sled dog population in some Nunavut communities. The group is expected to complete fieldwork by the end of the year.

Aatami said Quebec has agreed to pay half the costs of the Nunavik investigation, which could carry a total price tag between $300,000 and $600,000.

The study will be led by retired Quebec judge Jean-Jacques Croteau, who will visit Nunavik villages and table a report in three to six months.

Aatami hopes the results will trigger a full-blown public inquiry into the allegations.

“We thought maybe by having some sort of an inquiry we could get to the bottom of this once and for all,” Aatami said.

The RCMP report found evidence that officers destroyed sled dogs, but only as authorized by law. The study reports police killed the animals only for public health and safety reasons at the request of their owners.

“There was no government directive instructing the RCMP to destroy the sled dog population,” Sgt. Nathalie Deschenes of the RCMP said Friday.

“We were aware of outbreaks of canine disease that were threatening the sled dog population and we inoculated thousands of them. We also offered pups.”

But the RCMP report says only eight Inuit statements were examined during the investigation.

Inuit have long argued RCMP actions were part of a plan to confine their people in settlements where they would be more manageable.

Elders have recounted stories of police systemically shooting dogs that were tied up outside trading posts as Inuit conducted business inside. The dog team was the hunters’ ticket back to camp.

Dog sleds were used to whisk Inuit across barren land to faraway tree stands, where hunters gathered wood to chisel into harpoons.

Aatami said Makivik interviewed 200 Nunavik elders who claim their canines were killed. With an average of eight dogs harnessed in a team, that’s some 1,600 dogs, he added.

“It really affected a lot of lives,” he said of the alleged killings.

“There was something going on in those early years when the government was really starting to settle into Northern Canada.”