Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'We would like to express our deepest sorrow'

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, August 19, 2010 11:08am - 0 Comments

The government’s apology, delivered by Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan, to Inuit who were forcibly relocated in the 1950s.

On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, we would like to offer a full and sincere apology to Inuit for the relocation of families from Inukjuak and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay during the 1950s.

We would like to express our deepest sorrow for the extreme hardship and suffering caused by the relocation. The families were separated from their home communities and extended families by more than a thousand kilometres. They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies. They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic. Moreover, the Government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.

Tags: Arctic, Arctic sovereignty, high arctic relocation, Inuit, John Duncan

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Emily

It's about time. However Harper should have done this, in the HOC with everyone present.
John D

Good job.
SHWM

I just finished reading Gordon Robertson's memoirs, he was of course a long time civil servant, Commissioner of the NWT and was responsible for both the relocation of "Inuit" and the residential schools. He gives a very different account of the motivations of both programs. Robertson was a lib-left bureaucrat and not an evil guy by any stretch of the imagination. The Inuit were removed because the caribou (Inuit generally don't hunt caribou, but anyway) were gone, and the islands they were relocated to were teeming with game relatively speaking. Follow up visits indicated the Inuit were happy with this arrangement.

I fear this has become an issue of revisionism, one leading to Inuit developing serious hatred toward whites for crimes they did not commit.

Dubh

Not so, not so at all. Read The Long Exile, by Melanie McGrath, for first-hand accounts.
Blacktop

It's about time.. I was at Resolute several times during that period. Contray to the last poster the Inuit did hunt Caribou, but they certainly wouildn't find any at Resolute or Grise. As I recall they got ample food from the govt.

As I recall the move was related to sovereignty of the Canadian Arctic (Resolute was largely and RCAF Station at the time.) The Inuit taught Arctic Survival courses to RCAF Aircrews, incidentally. How to build a snow shelter and other survival arts.

Trust Emily to criticize Harper for the apoplogy the apologvy when it was a Liberal govt that did it.

What they develop in the way of feelings I don't know but they were a happy bunch when I saw them.

Emily

Again with the partisanship!

It doesn't matter WHO did it, it was wrong and should be properly apologized for.

Blacktop

It wasn't considered wrong at the time. As I recall the Eskimos, as they were then, kinda liked the idea until they yearned to go back. That wa the problem, they didn't send some back to see what a crappy world was in the makiong with most of the Eskimos thronging around Dew stations to get work and pop (Nice sugary soda pop like Orafge crushed to rot out their beautiful teeth which had been the result of a diet of fish and seal blubber – not to mention fins.

I think Harper is apologizing because he knows he is sticking it the Liberal's ear.

tedbetts

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Farley Mowat's The Snow Walker on the weekend. He has a very very different, first person account of what was done then and why and the terrible result.

Blacktop

Try the movie -i is wonderful. And yes Inuit do hunt cariboo when they aren fishing or spearing walrus, seal et etc. But in a fair amount of time in the Arctic, I never saw one cariboo in the Arctic Islands. Course, I mighthave missed them.
Another thing that I missed before is that : the main motivation of moving the Inutt was to put real people in the Arctic Islands and many of them served in a sort of sovereignty militia, occupying the ground as it were. Gave them rifles and all that. I am surprised Robertson didn't know more rthan what the psoter described from his memoirs. I have never heard of him. Was hisoffice in Ottawa or Yellowknife or Whitehorse. I never saw him on the ground whereas there others that were – Farley Mowat, Jim Heuston, for example.

Dave

Inuit generally don't hunt caribou? This comes as news to most Inuit.
Douglass

I would think it more likely that the man in charge of the move and operation might have a slanted view on why he did it looking back. I mean if we are talking revisionist history, lets not ignore the possibility that he is rewriting his.