Contact: Armand MacKenzie at 418.965.7026

or Valerie Taliman at 406.449.2006



ST. JOHNS, Quebec – More than 100 Innu families who are now occupying and using their aboriginal homeland in Newfoundland Labrador recently received eviction notices from the provincial government of Newfoundland Labrador. The Removal Notices direct Innu families to "remove all structures from Crown land and restore the site to its original conditions within 60 days of notice." Failure to do so will result in the Crown Lands Division demolishing their homes and charging the costs of demolition to the Innu families.



According to the notice, Innu families will be liable for fines of not less than $1,000, imprisonment up to three months – or both – if they fail to dismantle their homes and other structures such as ceremonial sweat lodges. The government also threatened to fine families $25 for each day the structures remain on "Crown land."

"This appears to be an outrageous effort by the government to evict the Innu people from their homeland without any legal basis, " said Robert Tim Coulter, a human rights and Indian law expert at the Indian Law Resource Center in Helena, Mont. "This is a grave violation of international human rights law that must be stopped. We are prepared to take this case to the international level if this matter is not resolved justly by the domestic courts of Canada."



Coulter, who was part of an international fact-finding mission to Innu territory last year, said, "Innu people never gave up their land, never received compensation, and never had any adjudication of their land rights. It is contemptible that the government thinks it can force people off their land and destroy their property."



Armand MacKenzie, an Innu attorney and human rights activist, said, "No one has the right to evict us. We were here long before Newfoundland Labrador was ever formed. It is a total disgrace in the international community for the provincial government to attempt to bully us into giving up our land so they can construct hydroelectric dams and make money off our resources.



"The threat of eviction puts a lot of stress on our elders, our children and our families," he said. "Where will they go? This is our homeland. We have sacred sites here, places where we pray and gather traditional medicines, places where we hunt, have ceremonies and bury our relatives. We're closely connected to our land, and it's important that we are able to live without fear of government agents harassing us."



The issue of land ownership is being heard in federal court in Montreal today in the case of Edouard Vollant et al. v. Sa Majesté et al. Scores of Innu people have filed a lawsuit seeking to establish that their traditional homeland in Newfoundland Labrador is owned by them under aboriginal title. The attorneys representing the Innu, James O'Reilly and Associates of Montreal, will defend against the government's attempt to evict the families and destroy their homes and sacred sites.



"We will not be intimidated by the provincial government, and we will not become strangers in our homelands," MacKenzie added. "We are the rightful owners of the land and we have lived on this land for countless generations. We have all the expert evidence from historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and our own people that prove this land belongs to the Innu people. We will fight this all the way."

The Indian Law Resource Center, with offices in Montana and Washington, D.C. takes cases regarding indigenous human rights violations to the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and other human rights bodies. In every case the Center has represented, the decisions favored indigenous peoples.



The Removal Notices appear to be related to the Innu people's request to be compensated for lands that have been taken in the past for resource development and hydroelectric projects. "To attempt to evict or remove indigenous peoples from their homeland is a very grave action, and to do it unlawfully is a serious violation of human rights. The Innu went to court to resolve the matter in a lawful way. For the government to summarily throw them out and destroy their homes is not a trivial matter," said Coulter.