Memorial University’s proposed Indigenous verification policy was developed without the inclusion of voices from the NunatuKavut Inuit community.

This policy is specifically designed to exclude any person who is a citizen of NunatuKavut. Throughout the development of this policy, the university chose to rely on colonial definitions and a flawed external report that fails to understand and appreciate our people are “recognized” as indigenous. 

NunatuKavut Inuit are beneficiaries of the 1765 British Inuit Treaty and are in a formal rights-based negotiations process with the Government of Canada – affirmed by a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) under the federal Recognition of Indigenous Rights and Self-Determination process. This MOU was upheld in a Federal Court win in June 2024.

We are recognized by governments, courts, and commissions – and by Memorial University itself, through over four decades of research and the Labrador Campus constitution.

Yet this policy disregards those facts, our progress and recognition. It attempts to exclude and erase NunatuKavut Inuit from Indigenous spaces at the university.

This is an extremely bad policy – it’s a failure of ethics, governance, and reconciliation at Memorial University.

We, the undersigned, call on Memorial University to:

1. Immediately withdraw the proposed policy. 
2. Begin meaningful respectful rights-based engagement with the NunatuKavut Community Council (and other impacted Indigenous organizations in the Province).
3. Introduce a policy based on recognition of rights, respect and shared priorities.

The draft policy, as it now stands, causes real harm. It undermines inclusion, devalues Indigenous identity, and violates the principles Memorial claims to uphold.

I stand with NunatuKavut Inuit students, staff, faculty, and alumni.

Stop Memorial University from excluding thousands of NunatuKavut Inuit with their discriminatory and prejudicial policy.