Innu Nation federal court challenge of NunatuKavut deal with Ottawa begins

A long-awaited and previously delayed court challenge over Canada'srecognition of the Indigenous status ofNunatuKavutbegan Tuesday in Ottawa.

Innu Nation began thecampaign in 2019 to refuteclaims of Indigenous ancestry made by the NunatuKavut community counciland to quash a memorandum of understanding signed between the counciland the federal government earlier that year.

The challenge was supposed to begin in October but was rescheduled.

In a news conference wherepunches weren't pulled Innu Nation Grand Chief Simon Pokuetold reporters Tuesday's court date was a long time coming.

"We are here to defend ourright, in the face of false and misleading claims of theNunatuKavut community council,"Pokuesaid, shortlyafter leaving the court house.

"The Innu suffered a great deal because of actions of settlers and their government. Now we face this threat, the threat that our life will be undermined by NCC, formerly known as LabradorMtis. This is a group of settlers pretending to be Inuit."

NunatuKavutsays it represents about 6,000 Inuit in central and southern Labrador.

Innu Nation, national Inuit representativeInuit Tapiriit Kanatamiand the Nunatsiavutgovernment which represents Inuit in five communities on Labrador's north coast have for years disputed those claims and the legitimacy of the NCC's Indigenous status. All three are represented in Ottawa during this week's trial.

The dispute between recognized Inuit groups andNunatuKavutdates back to the early 1990s, whenthe now-defunctLabradorMtis Nationfiled a land claim with the federal government.

At the time, theclaim was rejected by both the provincial and federal governments. Itbecame active again in 2010 when the group renamed itself the NunatuKavut community council.

"Accepting false claims undermines what we've fought so hard to achieve. The resilience and perseveranceof our ancestors run through our ways, urging us to safeguard our heritage and our cultural identity," saidNunatsiavut President Johannes Lampe.

"Recognizing a settler group in Labrador, whose members just a short few years ago identified themselves asMtis,is harmful and disrespectful. This is not reconciliation."

Members ofNunatuKavut, including President Todd Russell,are in Ottawa to attend the two-day court hearing.

Russell and the council say the court challenge and campaign against the memorandum of understanding is anattemptto deny culture andconnection to ancestral landsand is a form of racism and lateral violence.

"It wasn't a surprise to us to seethem, I guess, all congregated together to continue to push for their particular position, which is one that is unsubstantiated, untenable and has no basis in fact or evidence, law, history or any other study that could be conducted," Russell saidTuesday afternoon.

"There's been a number of different cases that we've been very successful on in the courts and which, of course, has also furthered our work and our relationships with various orders of government."

Russell said his group has been pursuing the recognition of its Inuit rights for roughly 40 years.

The conversation currently happening around identity and claims is an important one, but has nothing to do with the community council'ssituation, he said.

Other groups are opposed to the progress and the recognition the NCC has achieved with various orders of government, he said, and it boils down to a conflict over resources, money, Canadian government discussions and possible developments.

"It's only that some others are starting to try to project that conversation over on us and really there's no basis for it. Inuit were up and down the coast of Labrador sincetime immemorial," Russell said.

"We were Indigenous enough to be thrown in jail for protesting for our rights. We were Indigenous enough that many of our people, our young people, went to residential schools. We were Indigenous enough for those things."

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