What impact will Canadian F-35 warplanes at CFB Goose Bay have on Innu territory in Labrador?

Photo: Innu Elder Penashue testifies at hearing on February 17, 2023.

Tshaukuesh (Elizabeth) Penashue testified last week about the mistreatment of Innu people by colonial governments and how that continues today.

Penashue was speaking at an inquiry in Sheshatshiu (near Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay and more than 1,600 kilometres north of St. John’s) that is examining how Innu children and families have been affected by the state’s “child protection” system.

Penashue spoke about Innu life before colonization.

She said: “Before the government broke our land, we had everything, everything. Water was clean, trees, rivers, animals, berries, medicine. …There has been so much damage done. Dammed our rivers. Destroyed the land.”

CBC provides the context: “Penashue, 78, was born [in 1945] near Churchill Falls, Labrador, and moved with her community to Sheshatshiu in the 1960s. Land the Innu lived on, including traditional burial grounds, are now underwater in the area flooded to create a reservoir for the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project.”

CFB Goose Bay on Innu land

Penashue’s book Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive also discusses the land defence struggles against the military base on her ancestral territory.

During World War II a section of traditional Innu land was claimed by the state to create an airbase. It was operational by December 1941.

That airbase is called Canadian Forces Bay (CFB) Goose Bay.

The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) has noted: “The local population, including Indigenous people, was not allowed to use or settle on land near the military base and landing strip.”

Years ago, Penashue commented: “In the 40 years that the military has been in Goose Bay, the Innu’s culture has collapsed. The use of our lands by others, without our being consulted, has caused stress in our family relationships and links to our family violence. The Innu did not welcome foreign domination. It happened against their will.” 

We contrast her statement with the Government of Canada media release from last year on upgrading infrastructure at the base that noted: “The Department of National Defence has a 5 per cent Indigenous procurement target and will continue to seek out opportunities for greater collaboration with Indigenous-owned businesses.”

Photo: In August 2022, Defence Minister Anita Anand and Labrador Member of Parliament Yvonne Jones announced plans for infrastructure upgrades at the base.

This airbase, 5 Wing Goose Bay, now serves as a “forward operating location” for Canada’s current fleet of CF-18 fighter jets. (Back in 2010, National Defence described it as: “A Canadian Deployed Operating Base (DOB) of CF-18s operationally committed to NORAD.”)

It will also presumably serve that function for the new Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes that Canada intends to buy. The first four F-35s are expected to be delivered to the Air Force in 2026, with all 88 F-35s to be in place by 2032.

The base has also been used for exercises, including Operation NOBLE DEFENDER in March 2022 that saw “a number of military aircraft and personnel from Canada and the United States” with flights “conducted over sparsely populated arctic areas at high altitudes” where the military claimed “the public is not likely to see or hear aircraft in Canada.”

Operation NOBLE DEFENDER in 2023 again involved 5 Wing Goose Bay and this time four F-35s marking “the first time NORAD has deployed F-35s to Thule, Greenland.”

Innu land defenders arrested for challenging warplanes

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Innu, led mainly by women, began defending their land against NATO low-level fight testing for the cruise missile. More than one hundred Innu land defenders and their supporters were arrested at re-occupations of the Goose Bay airfield and the Minipi Lake bombing range.

Penashue has noted: “Innu women never used to go out to meetings, but it was time to wake up and do something to stop the destruction caused by low-level flying and weapons testing. …I went to the bombing range with other activists. We put tents on the base to protest. We were jailed many times, in Goose Bay and Stephenville. We walked from Toronto to Ottawa and they put us in jail there, too… I went to Europe twice to speak.”

Video: Hunters and Bombers (1990)

And Penashue has remarked: “When we go on the base, even when we are close to the jets, none of our children or elders go up to smash the jets. We never do that…. We tell the children, don’t touch anything. Don’t break anything. Don’t be rude.”

Photo: A protest at the Goose Bay air force base in 1988 in opposition to NATO low level flight training over Nitassinan.

In October 1994, the Peace Brigades International-North America Project commented: “A continuing issue for the Innu of both Labrador and Quebec is low-level flight training over their hunting territory by Canada and other NATO countries.”

PBI-NAP highlighted at that time the lack of free, prior and informed consent: “The training began without any prior consultation with the Innu.”

It wasn’t until 2005 that the 50+ years of low-level flying operations by NATO member countries over these ancestral lands finally ended.

Uninhabited land?

Penashue has commented: “Canada sees our land as uninhabited land. It is inhabited by the Innu, and it is inhabited by wildlife. This is hunting territory, nomadic territory. It is not for war games.”

As recently as September 2020, the Department of National Defence (DND) stated that it would be holding joint US-Canada air defence exercises out of 5 Wing Goose Bay.

Their media release seems to confirm Penashue’s comment. DND stated: “[The] exercise flights will be conducted over sparsely populated Arctic areas and at high altitudes where the public is not likely to hear or see them.”

Photo: A CF-18 fighter jet at CFB Goose Bay, September 2020.

Impact of noise levels

WCAX has reported that a decibel meter measurement of the noise level of an F-35 in flight showed 109 decibels. An iPhone decibel app measured the noise in the high 90s – too loud to hear a conversation. The highest reading was 113 db.

The article highlights: “Officials said the F-35s did not use their afterburners on this flight”, which would presumably mean even higher levels.

EcoPolitic has noted: “Noise from military aircraft has different effects on wildlife, covering primary, secondary and tertiary effects. These effects can occur during the acute or chronic period and have sublethal and lethal consequences depending on the acoustic duration, intensity and biology of a particular species.”

It has also been argued: “Woodland caribou may be more vulnerable to negative impacts of military jet noise during calving periods, dependent on predator density.”

It’s not clear if studies have been done by the Canadian government on the impact of noise levels on people and wildlife near the air force base.

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo: Innu Elder Tshuakuesh Elizabeth Penashue and Peace Brigades International-North America Project activist Anne Harrison in 1995.