Mandate and Guiding Principles

Mushuau Innu-Aimun Sheshatshiu Innu-Aimun

Mandate

The Inquiry must look into and report on the treatment, experiences and outcomes of Innu in the child protection system. We must examine the underlying social, economic, cultural, institutional, and historical causes that contribute to the overrepresentation of Innu in that system and provide recommendations for a new path forward.

The Inquiry will:

  • Look into systemic issues, through research, review and analysis of:
    • History of child protection as it relates to the Innu
    • Reasons for Innu involvement with child protection
    • Availability and gaps in access to services, and means to avoid involvement and/or removal from family or community, as well as connection to culture and community while in care or custody
    • Treatment, experiences and outcomes for Innu with involvement in the system, including on their parents and families
  • Conduct Investigations into the deaths of specific Innu children, youth or young adults, who:
    • Had experience in care or custody;
    • Were under age 25 at the time of their death and died on or after September 30, 2007;
    • Parents, or a person standing in the place of a parent, or other next-of-kin believes that their time in the system contributed to the death; and
    • Requests that the Inquiry investigate the death
  • Make Recommendations in a report that compiles what we have learned, (what has happened, what the impacts have been, what has changed, what has worked and what hasn’t), and to provide recommendations for a path forward.

Guiding Principles

The Inquiry acknowledges that the Innu and Innu Communities in the Province are suffering from intergenerational trauma related to racism and colonialism.

The Inquiry will operate under a guiding principle of “do no further harm”. The Inquiry will therefore conduct all parts of the Inquiry in a manner which is trauma informed.

The Inquiry must incorporate and be guided by the Touchstones of Hope phases of reconciliation and guiding principles, brought to life through Innu culture, language and worldviews.

  • Phases of reconciliation, being:
    • truth-telling,
    • acknowledging,
    • restoring and
    • relating
  • And are guided by the principles of:
    • self-determination,
    • culture and language,
    • holistic approaches,
    • structural interventions and
    • non-discrimination.