ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The federal government should abandon its negotiating position during treaty talks with Labrador's Innu Nation and let the drawn-out, decades-long process reach a conclusion, according to a new report by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
"These negotiating positions are not only an obstacle to the just and timely resolution required of Canada, they are, in some instances, fundamentally incompatible with Canada’s human rights obligations," the report, released Monday, said.
The report is the second follow-up to an inquiry that was completed in 1993, which studied the treatment of Labrador's Innu Nation by the federal government. Ottawa should aim to conclude negotiations within three years, the report said, adding that the federal government has a long way to go to meet its obligations to the region's two Innu communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish.
"We have been at the treaty negotiating table for over 30 years," Innu Nation Grand Chief Etienne Rich told reporters Monday in St. John's after the report was released. The federal government has been particularly stubborn on issues of taxation, own-source revenue and self-governance, Rich said.
"I want to sign a good treaty so that we can govern ourselves and control our own land and resources with adequate funding to deliver some levels of programs and services to Innu that other Canadians take for granted."
The 1993 inquiry recommended that the government of Canada and the Innu Nation enter into negotiations to lay out an agreement recognizing the Innu people's right to self-governance and to outline the nation's relationship with the provincial and federal governments. A framework agreement was reached in 1996 but talks ultimately stalled.
John Olthuis, a lawyer for the Innu Nation, told reporters that Ottawa would like the sales tax and income tax exemptions that Innu people receive to end eight years after an agreement is signed. The federal government is also asking that the money it provides for programs and services be offset by the Innu Nation's own-source revenue, which is money generated from resource projects on Innu land, like the open-pit Voisey's Bay mine owned and operated by Vale, or the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project, Olthuis said.
"In the last number of years, most of the houses in Sheshatshiu and Natuashish have been built with own-source revenue," Olthuis said. "And the Innu get a lot more own-source revenue than they get in funding from the federal government. So this is extremely important funding to close the socioeconomic gap."
That gap is substantial, the commission's report said. Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada in 1949, but the federal government didn't recognize the Innu Nation as having the same status and rights as other First Nations until 1997. That created a period of nearly 50 years during which the Innu were denied basic rights and services afforded to other Indigenous groups, the report said.
"The Innu are owed a debt of justice for decades-long denial of their human rights," Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, told reporters Monday.
"We are talking about some of the most basic rights issues including access to health care, interacting safely with the police and government officials … with the release of this 70-page comprehensive study, governments now have a road map to best address and improve the human rights situation of the Innu."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2021.
Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press
