The federal government has apologized to the Inuit for the slaughter of sled dogs in Nunavut from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. Gary Anandasangara, the Minister of Indigenous Relations, announced $45 million in compensation for the Inuit of the region in the village of Kangiqsuzua in northern Quebec.
“There has been a wave of pain and frustration across Nunavut over the slaughter of dogs. There are no words to express our sorrow and regret,” Anandasangara said at a ceremony Saturday afternoon. The federal government is taking responsibility for the slaughter of dogs. Federal officials were aware of the slaughter of dogs throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Yet they allowed it to continue. Even though the Inuit’s livelihood, health and well-being depended heavily on their dogs, their health and well-being were greatly affected by it,” Anandasangara said.
“They had no other way to go to the land, to hunt, to fish or to travel through the ice or through the forest,” said the president of an Inuit organization. “They had to do everything with their dogs, which were taken from them. On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I express my condolences. Please forgive us.”
Quebec police killed more than 1,000 dogs in Nunavut. The federal government’s apology comes 14 years after Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Jacques Croteau issued a report on the killing.
According to Croteau, more than 200 dogs were killed in just three days in Kangiqsuzwa alone between 1965 and 1967, more than half of the dogs there.
The federal government last apologized to the Inuit in 2019 for the RCMP’s killing of sled dogs in Nunavut.
