Innu inquiry formal hearings draw to a close as parties give final submissions

Jolene Ashini clogged up as her closure submissions came to an terminate on th in well-chosen Valley-Goose Bay.

It’s been four years since the start of a public inquiry into the treatment, experiences and outcomes of Innu families in the child protection system. The process has pulled painful memories to the surface, scars of colonialism from the present day to the not-so-distant past.

Ashini, a lawyer representing the people of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish at the inquiry, gave the final word for the Innu on Thursday as formal hearings came to a close.

“The success of this inquiry will not ultimately be measured by the publication of its report or by the promises made in response. It will be measured by whether Innu children are safer,” she said through tears.

“It will be measured by whether Innu children grow up knowing who they are, where they belong, and that they will always have a place within their families, communities and nation. Those are our submissions.”

The inquiry’s three commissioners will now have until October to craft their final report.

They’ve heard from Innu families, social workers, investigators, lawyers, elders and more. 

The inquiry heard testimony tracing the intergenerational trauma in Innu communities back to federal and provincial policies forcing permanent settlements and cultural assimilation upon a nomadic people with a proud history.

The province’s child protection system pushed many of those policies, removing Innu children from their homes at a rate far outpacing the numbers for non-Innu families in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Many of those children returned home after aging out of the system with little to no planning in place to support them. They lost touch with their language and culture. They struggled with mental illness and addictions.

Six youths from Natuashish died between 2015 and 2021. Their cases were examined by investigators Kenn Richard and Tara Petti, who found a series of systemic failings in the child protection system that played a role in their deaths.

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Philip Warren, a lawyer for the province, acknowledged those findings during his closing submissions on Thursday.

“We recognize the six children who died and we are sorry for their loss,” Warren said. “We recognize the hurt of those families. We heard it ourselves.”

Warren pointed to several of Richard and Petti’s conclusions — including issues with the “fly-in, fly-out” model used by social workers with the provincial government in Natuashish — acknowledging it is not working. Warren also acknowledged issues with poor communication between child protection officials and families on the ground in Innu communities.

“We need to improve and do better,” he said. “We need to try to break down those silos and improve communication to find out where those service gaps exist.”

The federal government passed Bill C-92 in 2019, which affirmed the rights of Indigenous communities to have jurisdiction over their own child protection matters.

Work is underway to overhaul the child protection system in Labrador, though a truly Innu-led system remains a long way away.

Indicators provided to the inquiry show improvements in recent years in areas such as out-of-province placements, though Innu children are still overrepresented in the system.

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Ashini said the inquiry will play a key role not just in shaping the future of Innu-led child protection, but in healing the wounds caused by the provincial and federal governments in the Innu homeland.

“Reconciliation therefore requires Canada and the province to acknowledge and apologize for their respective roles in harms experienced by Innu auâssat [children], including the operation of Innu day schools, the North West River dormitory, placements at Mount Cashel and the child protection system more broadly.”

She also hopes the provincial and federal governments will continue working to improve the system before handing it over to the Innu. Ashini said delivering a broken system will only set the Innu up for failure.

“Without adequate support, governments risk transferring responsibility while withholding the resources necessary to rebuild systems damaged through generations of their own colonial intervention. That would not be reconciliation. It would be another form of abandonment.”

Ryan Cooke is a justice affairs reporter based in St. John's. He can be reached at ryan.cooke@cbc.ca.

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