Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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PAM FRAMPTON: NL's PC government on shaky ground over Innu dispute

Archaeologists affirm Innu were in NL long before the 1700s, but PC government's dispute over timeline seems to be rewriting history

At a time when the Canadian government has proclaimed its commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, the Newfoundland and Labrador government seems intent on going backwards.

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On June 21, an exhibition telling the story of millennia of Innu culture set to open in Labrador for National Indigenous Peoples Day was cancelled by the Innu Nation when organizers said they had been told by provincial government representatives that the timeline of their presence in Newfoundland and Labrador could not go back more than 300 years.

Where had this 300-year-old narrative come from? And, most importantly, why was it being asserted?

What do archaeologists have to say?

As recently as the 57th annual meeting of the Canadian Archaeology Association in St. John’s in 2025, archaeologists were affirming that the Innu were here long before the 1700s.

Marianne Stopp, an archeologist specializing in the history and prehistory of Labrador, presented a paper at that conference that refutes the government’s fantastical claim that the Innu only sprang into existence in........

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