[3] Prior to the time of European contact, the Mi'kmaq people inhabited Miꞌkmaꞌki, their vast territories which encompassed much of modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as well as portions of northeastern New Brunswick and Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula.

By the 17th century, the Mi'kmaq would often visit the island they called Taqamkuk (present-day Newfoundland) by crossing the Cabot Strait in shallops that they adopted from European fur traders.

[4] They visited the island and hunted along its south coast, going as far east as Placentia Bay, before returning to Unamaki[citation needed].

During Canada's 18th-century colonial period, French and British forces warred for rights to North American land claims.

Newfoundland, however, was still sparsely populated, and most Europeans lived on the eastern portion of the island, in small and isolated coastal fishing settlements.

In the 1860s, the British hired a group of Mi'kmaq men for overland postal delivery via a network of trails to reach the northern communities.

Numerous settlers thus arrived to hunt the caribou and moose, in addition to other animals, causing a sharp decline in local wildlife populations.

The caribou, for example, had served as one of the main sources of food and supplies for the Mi'kmaq, and their decline adversely affected the survival of the people.

[6] In 2003, Minister Andy Scott was presented with a report that recommended a First Nations band without any reserved land to represent the Mi'kmaq of Newfoundland.

In 2013 applicants organized a new group, the Mi’kmaq First Nations Assembly of Newfoundland to lobby to continue the enrollment process.

[13] In 2014, parliament passed Bill C-25, authorizing it to review all applications and retroactively reject some, based on criteria similar to those used in the R v Powley case that defined rights for the Métis people.

[12][18] In 2018, the Qalipu First Nation announced that the updated Founding Members List for the Band was adopted by way of an Order in Council which came into effect on June 25, 2018.

[21] Later in 2013, the Mi’kmaq Grand Council, the traditional government of the Mi'kmaq people, issued a statement to the United Nations denouncing the Qalipu band as illegitimate.