METHODS QUESTIONED AFTER OUSTER FROM INUIT GOVERNMENT

A former member of Labrador’s Inuit government is questioning the methods used to quantify whether he is sufficiently Indigenous after he was removed from his government roles last week. Edward Blake Rudkowski, pictured, says he was informed last Friday he was no longer a beneficiary of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement after a review of his status determined he had just 17 per cent Inuit blood. He says according to the land claims agreement, beneficiaries must have at least 25 per cent “blood quantum,” as it’s called, to be registered as Labrador Inuit and beneficiaries of the agreement. Blake Rudkowski says he’s been a beneficiary of the agreement for decades and feels the process that determined his blood quantum amounted to throwing darts at a board.