Labrador Innu to boycott flight hearings

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The Innu in Labrador and Quebec will boycott environmental assessment hearings on low-level flight training because they say the public process is unfair.

Hearings began Sept. 19 and will run to Oct. 29 to allow response to an environmental study done by the Department of National Defence. The department insists the training has little or no impact on the wildlife and plans to increase low-level flights by 100 per cent throughout the area.

Daniel Ashini, Director of Innu Rights and Environment, said the Innu will not participate in what has developed into a public relations ploy for the Department of National Defence. The Innu object to the timing of the hearings and the rules under which they are governed.

"We cannot participate because the (Federal Environmental Assessment) panel is denying our right to cross-examine DND consultants on their evidence," Ashini said.

To add insult to injury, the hearings take place during a time when many Innu, especially Elders who know what is happening to the Caribou herds and wildlife as a result of the military training, are out on their traditional lands and not available to attend, he said.

The boycott will render the hearings meaningless, said Ashini. Without input from the Innu, the panel will not be able to gather the required information needed to make an informed decision.

The whole process should be done away with and replaced with one that is more objective and at arms-length from DND, he said.

"It should be revised and made acceptable to the people it is supposed to answer to."

Ashini believes the department has interfered and meddled in the affairs of the panel.

The panel has been bullied into rushing to the hearing process in order to meet DND deadlines, he said. The allies are not going to sign any new flight training agreements with Canada until the hearing process is complete, so the rush is on to complete the process before year's end, Ashini said.

This interference calls into question the entire federal environmental review process, he said. The Innu are sending a warning that if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere in Canada.

The process is bogus and 'very much flawed,' said Ashini. The federal government and DND are lying to the Canadian public, feigning interest in the environment and the people of northern Quebec and Labrador.