An increased role for Indigenous citizens in decisions affecting Labrador
I am not a Labradorian, although I do live in Labrador. In late 2010 and early 2011, I was one of a number of selfselected respondents who took part in a survey (n = 285) and virtual town hall (n = 111–306 touchtone votes) commissioned by Todd Russell, the MP for Labrador at that time. The themes of the survey and town hall focused on environmental impacts, local benefits and Indigenous rights. The questions were designed to “canvass the diversity of views in Labrador.”
In response to each of the questions asked, a majority of respondents indicated that they had significant concerns with the Muskrat Falls project. In relation to Indigenous rights specifically, approximately two-thirds of the respondents indicated that the project agreement did not respect Innu, Inuit and Metis rights. Among respondents from Upper Lake Melville and the Labrador coast — the regions with the highest proportion of Indigenous population in Labrador — only seven per cent of respondents indicated that the project respected Innu, Inuit and Metis rights.
The resulting report by Russell, Where We Stand: Labradorians’ Views of the Muskrat Falls Proposal, while not without its methodological issues, is the only attempt I know of to quantify Labrador citizens’ views of Muskrat Falls prior to construction.
In contrast to Russell’s report, a Corporate Research Associates poll reported in The Telegram states that a majority of the 400 Newfoundland and Labrador residents surveyed “completely/mostly support” the Muskrat Falls project. Within this overall sample, however, only about six per cent of the respondents, or 24 people, are from Labrador; and they are not distinguished from Newfoundlanders living on the western portion of the island.
So, while the headline that a majority of the province’s residents support the project may be true within a national context, in the provincial context it is just as likely, if not more so, that a majority of Labradorians do not support the project, while a majority of Newfoundlanders do.
Discords between the two geographic regions of the province, such as that above, are not new. Newfoundland and Labrador is not a single terrestrial, social or cultural unit. Within the population of the province, residents of Labrador are outnumbered about 18 to 1, and the 2006 Canadian census shows that the Innu and Inuit make up 37 per cent of the overall Labrador population.
Within the provincial union, Labrador cannot muster a majority and, within Labrador, the Indigenous population cannot muster a majority. This is in spite of the fact that the largest portion of the Quebec–labrador Peninsula — Nitassinan and Ungava — is indisputably Indigenous territory. It is where they live, and where they became the societies they are today. The Innu and Inuit, respectively, have been here for millennia and centuries longer than settlers.
This is colonialism through demographic incursion. As the Muskrat Falls project and the 2016 protests in Upper Lake Melville have shown, resource management within Labrador is not undertaken at the will of local citizens, whether settler or Indigenous. Labrador independence has often been suggested as one solution to this imbalance of power, and perhaps it would help. As the population numbers show, however, Innu and Inuit would remain outnumbered, and they would still not have an equitable say in the management of the territory.
One mechanism that may help to remedy this imbalance of power has come to light through another tragedy of resources in Nitassinan and Ungava. The Ungava Peninsula Caribou Aboriginal Roundtable has formed in response to the mismanagement and drastic decline of the George River caribou herd. This group includes representatives of all the Indigenous communities in Labrador and eastern Quebec, and does not include any members of the provincial or federal governments. The community representatives ask the questions and pursue the answers and, in the process, draw on experts from the Eeyou (Cree), Innu, Inuit and scientific communities.
Through legislation, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador could create an Indigenous resource management table in Labrador, with a mandate to pose questions and compel answers from proponents of development and regulators and to reach consensus around management parameters and mitigation prior to the issuing of development and other permits (assuming that development is wanted at all).
Those around the table would come from the Indigenous communities. They would represent various segments of Indigenous society, and they would not be sitting members of government. The conflict-of-interest guidelines would be strict, and the table’s directives to proponents and regulators would be binding.
This table is conceived as a step beyond the co-management that comes with a land claim or the social licence to operate that some resource developers seek today. The goal would be to decolonize the process of resource management in Labrador and to ensure that Innu and Inuit ways of knowing and being are maintained, fostered, and fortified through the process of resource management, and not on an ad hoc basis.
About the Author
Scott Neilsen (Archeology, Labrador Institute, and Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland) lives and works in Labrador, and has a keen interest in the long-term history of Indigenous peoples in the region and their relations with one another, settlers, visitors, government and the environment. He is co-ordinator of the Certificate in Aboriginal and Indigenous Studies at Memorial University, and sits on the President’s Advisory Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.