Tagak Curley remembers being spied on. 

“It was an uneasy feeling,” he said. “We would see them upon arrival to the airport or to meetings that [were] happening.”

Curley was the first president of what is now Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada. 

He says the RCMP’s recent statement of ‘regret’ doesn’t go far enough to address the spying that occurred on himself and other Indigenous leaders in the 1960s and ’70s.

“Regret is not a mechanism or whatnot. It’s too superficial,” Curley said. “I don’t think it’s fair to just brush it off.”

A CBC Indigenous investigation recently uncovered the existence of the RCMP’s “native extremism program”, which monitored Indigenous political activity amid concerns about the influence of foreign radicals and communists.

Curley’s criticism of the RCMP’s response echoes those of other leaders, like Assembly of First Nation National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, who called the program an effort “to suppress our rights and our voices.”

Curley says he’d like to see real accountability and a public inquiry into the program. 

“We were not a threat to the nation,” Curley said. “We need statement, we need facts, we need information. Why in the world would they do that to their First Peoples of Canada?” 

Jack Anawak, a longtime Nunavut politician, is also calling for a public inquiry. He said he isn’t sure if he was spied on, but knows of people who were. He isn’t impressed by the RCMP’s statement. 

“That’s just an excuse to get out from under,” Anawak said. “There really needs to be an inquiry into finding out just how much the government of Canada had a role… A statement of regret or even an apology is enough at all.”

Anawak says the spying is “troubling although not surprising” since the RCMP was created partly to police Indigenous people.

ITK unable to comment on statement

ITK didn’t respond to CBC’s request for a comment on the RCMP’s statement. In an email, ITK says they are “working separately” to access files related to ITK.

President Natan Obed previously spoke to CBC in March and called the espionage program disturbing. He said he intended to speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney and the RCMP commissioner directly about the program. 

WATCH | ITK president reacts to CBC Indigenous investigation on RCMP surveillance :

ITK president reacts to CBC Indigenous investigation on RCMP surveillance

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed says it’s important to learn about the reporting on a past RCMP surveillance program for Indigenous people to make sure it never happens again.

But Anawak said that’s not enough. He said the ITK’s lack of comment on the RCMP’s statement shows “a lack of leadership.”

Curley said ITK should be doing more to “honour and respect former leaders,” like himself, who were spied on. 

Without them, he said, the “new leadership could not be enjoying their freedom.”

“They are servants,” he said, “who must be doing up a representation — to not just the living, but to those who have passed on as well.”