Quebec Innu caribou hunt protests N.L. deal

Some Innu in Quebec have embarked on a week-long caribou hunt that will take them across the provincial boundary into Newfoundland and Labrador to protest a deal struck between that province and the Innu in Labrador.

As many as 150 aboriginals from five Quebec-based Innu groups began the hunt Saturday to make a political statement against the New Dawn Agreement, a contentious deal that has split the Innu people.

"It draws a line between the Quebec Innu and the Innu from Labrador," said Armand MacKenzie, an adviser with the La Romaine Innu on Quebec's Lower North Shore. "And it draws a map of where the Innu in Labrador will always be considered first in Labrador, leaving the Quebec Innu out of the loop."

The agreement offered the Labrador Innu hunting rights within 34,000 square kilometres of land, plus $2 million annually in compensation for flooding caused by construction of the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project 40 years ago.

In 2008, its signing was hailed by Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams as heralding a new era of partnership with the Innu people of Labrador.

Last week, the Innu Nation signed an agreement in principle that brings the province a giant step closer to developing the Lower Churchill megaproject and gives legal weight to New Dawn.

But MacKenzie said the deals have driven a wedge between Innu communities.

"The border was not even an issue a couple of years ago," he said. "We were a nomadic people going from one place to another without taking into account the provincial border. For many, many years we were one people."

MacKenzie contends Quebec Innu may lose privileges in the neighbouring province because of the deal.

"It's all the constitutional rights, dealing with economic development, hunting rights, cultural rights, all of those rights that belong to Innu as a people," he said.

Innu group slams deal

The Innu Strategic Alliance, an organization that represents a number of Innu people in Quebec, released a statement Saturday that slammed the proposal.

"Our ancestral land, which ignores all boundaries imposed by non-aboriginal governments, is largely located in Labrador where we have always hunted caribou and we will continue to do so," said Real McKenzie, chief of the Matimekush-Lac John community.

Mackenzie said the Quebec Innu were left with no choice but to ramp up action through the courts, international pressure or civil disobedience.

"It leaves us with no other options but to assert those rights on the ground, in the trenches, by asserting our aboriginal right to hunt in Labrador and by using all legal recourse we might have," he said.

"It's a first step for further actions in the future."

The hunters are expected to speak to the media on their return next week.

N.L. monitors threatened herd

The Newfoundland and Labrador government said Sunday that the hunt should not take place in an area that is closed to protect a threatened caribou herd.

Last year, the provincial government said Innu from Quebec hunted in the closed area. At the time, a government official said it was too dangerous to intervene.

On Sunday, the province said conservation officials are monitoring the area.

"Information collected by the Department of Natural Resources indicates that approximately 100-150 Innu hunters from Quebec are camped in an area populated by the George River caribou herd, but also closed to hunting because it is the core range of the threatened Red Wine caribou herd," the government stated.

"We ask the Quebec Innu leadership to put conservation practices first and instead of risking killing the last of the Red Wine caribou to make a political point, accept our offer to sit down and work through these conservation issues as leaders do," Justice Minister Felix Collins said in a release.

The Quebec Innu dispute the claim that they pose a risk to a threatened caribou herd.

Innu leaders from Quebec travelled to Ottawa in November to tell federal officials that they will block Newfoundland and Labrador’s development plans unless the federal government helps protect their rights on ancestral lands.