After more than five years, inquiry into Innu children in care begins in Labrador

Story by The Canadian Press • Today

SHESHATSHIU, N.L. — A long-awaited inquiry into the treatment of Innu youth in provincial care has begun in Sheshatshiu, N.L., one of two Innu communities in Labrador.



The Inquiry into the Treatment, Experiences and Outcomes of Innu in the Child Protection System will include examinations of Innu history and the systemic barriers they face.

It will also investigate several cases of Innu children who died in the care of the Newfoundland and Labrador government.

Commissioner Anastasia Qupee said today in her opening statement that Labrador's Innu children and communities have long borne the effects of the foster care system.

The government first announced a memorandum of understanding with the Innu Nation in 2017 to pursue the inquiry.

The latest census data shows that Indigenous youth compose more than one-third of all children provincial care.

The Innu Nation's website says there are around 3,200 members in Labrador, most of whom live in Sheshatshiu, about 40 kilometres north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and in Natuashish, which sits along Labrador's north coast.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2023.

'We’re stuck in two worlds’

Story by The Canadian Press • TODAY

The Innu of Labrador have waited six years for a promised inquiry to take place into their experiences with the province’s child-protection services.

That day has finally arrived.

The Inquiry into the Treatment, Experiences and Outcomes of Innu in the Child Protection Systems gets underway Monday in the community of Sheshatshiu. The first two weeks will be devoted to the history and culture of the Innu, and will be live-streamed for the public to see.

Other segments of the process will take place throughout the spring and summer, and involve investigative testimony as well as private and community truth-telling sessions.

A report is expected in October.

Lawyers for the commission held a technical briefing for reporters Friday, Feb. 10, to explain the complexities of the inquiry stemming from both its sensitive subject matter as well as the broader impact of colonialism in general.

Some names will be subject to a publication ban unless consent to disclose identities is given.

Contacted Friday, a spokesperson for the Innu Nation said leaders will offer reflections on the inquiry on its opening day.

Residents of the Innu communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish share a common ancestry as descendants of Indigenous caribou hunters, but arrived in their current locations through separate paths.

Sheshatshiu is the longest-established reserve, whereas Natuashish was built in 2002 when the Mushuau Innu moved out of Davis Inlet.

Their traditional language is Innu-aimun, although there is some variance between the two groups.

As a people who traditionally lived a nomadic existence following the migratory routes of caribou, the Innu have struggled to adapt to the stationary lifestyle imposed on them by European encroachers.


During the launch of a provincewide suicide prevention initiative in 2021, former Sheshatshiu band chief Anastasia Qupee explained how her people have more recently tried to recapture their traditional way of life by getting children out of the classroom and out on the land as part of their education.

“That’s where people are the happiest. Kids are happy. We need to do more to support those kinds of initiatives and to support our culture and language, and to make the youth feel strong,” she said.

Innu and Inuit communities experience some of the highest rates of suicide, in some cases as much as 20 times higher than that on the island of Newfoundland.

Qupee is one of three commissioners for the inquiry, along with retired social work professor Mike Devine and chief commissioner Judge James Igloliorte.

While the Innu experience with the child-protection system follows a long and tragic arc, perhaps the most visceral moment came in the early 1990s when images of teenagers in Davis Inlet sniffing gasoline were broadcast around the world.

Several of them were extracted from the community and taken to St. John’s for treatment.

The episode sparked a collective movement to rescue residents from their broken surroundings and move them to the newly built community of Natuashish.

However, many of the social problems came with them, and the legacy of lost identity continued as children continued to be farmed out to group homes and foster parents.

As well as addressing broader issues, the inquiry will delve into specific incidents of children dying while under the purview of protection services.

In 2020, former Innu deputy grand chief Simeon Tshakapesh expressed his long-standing frustrations after the death of an Innu boy, Wally Rich, at a group home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Tshakapesh’s son, Thunderheart, took his own life three years earlier when he returned to Natuashish after being in care.

The Innu elder summarized the inherent conflict for the Innu under colonization during an earlier interview with The Canadian Press.

“We’re stuck in two worlds,” he said. “We have TVs, satellites, cellphones, the internet, Facebook. … The Mushuau Innu came out of the bush not even 50 years ago. We were a nomadic people.”

The provincial government allocated $4 million in Budget 2022 to establish the inquiry.

Peter Jackson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Telegram