Committee calls for probe of Arctic sled-dog slaughter

CanWest News Service
Friday, March 11, 2005

OTTAWA - A Commons committee is recommending the government launch a full inquiry into the slaughter of thousands of sled dogs through the 1950s and '60s.

After listening to another morning of emotional testimony from Inuit elders who watched their dogs shot at the hands of northern police, committee members endorsed a recommendation to have a superior court judge investigate the killings.

Inuit believe the decimation of sled dogs was part of a secret policy to push remote Inuit settlements closer to communities where their children would go to school. In testimony to the committee on Tuesday, an RCMP director general said officers only killed dogs that were lamed by illness or distemper