Canada apologizes to indigenous people for ‘massive’ slaughter of sled dogs

The Canadian government officially apologized on Saturday to indigenous people in the north of the country for the “massive” slaughter of hundreds of sled dogs in the 1950s and 1960s by police.

“It should not have taken decades for Canada to apologize to the Inuit of Nunavik for the role played by the federal government in the dispossession and devastating loss of sled dogs, who were companions and loved ones,” said Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, during a ceremony in the north of the province of Quebec.

In addition to the official apology, the Canadian government will pay compensation of 45 million Canadian dollars (30 million euros) to the community, he said.

Dogs killed without investigation

The police killed more than 1,000 dogs belonging to indigenous people in the Nunavik region “without taking into account the serious and difficult consequences for the owners and their families”, all “without investigation and without asking whether the targeted dogs constituted a real danger for the population,” details a report published in 2010 by a retired judge.

However, sled dogs were “essential for hunting, trapping and fishing, and the entire community depended on the dogs as a means of subsistence and a mode of transportation,” the report points out.

“The actions and inaction that led to the mass slaughter of sled dogs have inflicted suffering and hardship on Inuit families that none of them should have had to endure,” added the minister.

In 2019, the Canadian government also apologized to the Inuit of Nunavut for the role of police in the slaughter of sled dogs in this region.

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