Leaders want Beothuk remains returned to N.L.
Miawpukek Chief Mi’sel Joe was jovial speaking to reporters Friday afternoon, coming out of a daylong meeting with fellow indigenous leaders and Premier Dwight Ball.
The most concrete result of the first-ever provincial roundtable of indigenous leaders was a joint letter calling on the National Museum of Scotland to return remains of two Beothuk people taken in the 19th century.
The issue has been a cause for Joe since 2015, and he said it’s heartening to have support — he said initially the Scottish authorities viewed him as “one lonely Indian” making demands.
“I said jokingly to them, if you don’t show me the remains, I’m going to dig up Robbie Burns and take him back for study,” Joe told reporters.
“The following year, they had the remains for me to see.”
The joint statement goes some way toward satisfying one of the Scottish criteria to further the process of repatriating the human remains, a cause Ball has taken up since becoming premier in 2015.
The indigenous leaders meeting with Ball at Confederation Building also sent a joint letter to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls requesting that the inquiry come to Newfoundland and Labrador.
The joint letter reiterated the same messages that individual indigenous groups have already communicated to the inquiry.
The leaders also talked about mental-health issues and the Atlantic Growth Strategy among the four Atlantic provinces.
Discussion of the calls for action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was also on the agenda.
As is often the case with political summits, the meeting ended with an agreement to have more meetings and further discussion.
But the message from Ball and the other participants was that having a daylong discussion with senior bureaucrats, politicians, indigenous governments and other key organizations was a historic first.
“Today we came together at the request of the premier to talk about our issues openly so that the premier and government understands where we’re coming from,” said Brendan Mitchell, chief of the Qalipu First Nation.
“Today is a great day for us all.”
Joe said something similar. “We’re no longer speaking in isolation,” he said.
“Today was an eye-opener in many ways, that we all have the same issues. And I think we made some history today in coming together.”
Ball said that previously most of the communication between indigenous groups and the provincial government was on a one-to-one basis. He said those direct relationships will continue, but the joint meeting was a valuable addition to discuss common goals and shared problems.
Ball said he is committed to holding such roundtables at least once a year in the future.