Money is given to other communities but never to this one – we are helpless.

Our young people have nothing. If we had money, we could do things for the young people. (Weeps) We need the government to do something about it. We should show kids today how to live in the country.

I would try to create a system to redistribute the traditional food – food from nutshimit. I would try to create a system whereby country food would be redistributed within the community. I would try to educate people or teach them how to cook, how to prepare Indian country food so that people like me or others would learn how to prepare Indian food, because surprisingly there are a lot of people who don’t know how to prepare country food in the traditional way. I would have stores so that people who want country food could just go to the freezer and get some.

I think that was the start of where we were cut off from our traditional way of life. That was the starting point and there were a lot of pressures put on … the parents to send their children to the residential schools. In the sense that they were not receiving any support from the government or the church. They were not receiving any help. Because that’s where we started to lose our language, our culture. And that’s where the government, in its actions, in its plan, tried to make sure that the Innu would become like white people, not any more Innu. Their children would become like white people.

They are drilling three hours north of here – that’s where the big caribou herd passes. In Matimekush they are drilling right next to the cemetery, but our leaders do nothing about it.

When Labrador signs the [New Dawn] Agreement they will have money, but we have no resources to fight our claims.