Editorial: An emotional apology from Canada

First Nations | Opinion

Friday, June 13, 2008

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the House of Commons Wednesday delivered a historic apology intended to alter Canada's sorry relationship with its aboriginal people. Mr. Harper apologized repeatedly for the damages inflicted on generations of aboriginal children taken from their parents and put into residential schools under a policy that regarded Indians as "inferior and unequal." Mr. Harper was speaking to all Canadians, however, when he properly noted the attitudes that inspired the residential schools policy have no place in this country today.

In an emotional afternoon in Parliament, Canadians watched their political leaders and then leaders of Canada's three aboriginal groups acknowledge the legacy of residential schools and a policy of assimilation that set out to "kill the Indian in the child."

Previous ministers and officials have given lip service to the role government played in the history of residential schools, but have steadfastly refused to apologize unconditionally and shoulder the blame for policies that helped plunge aboriginal people into the dismal social and economic conditions that prevail in Canada today. Beginning in the late 1900s, native children aged six to 16 were forcibly isolated from their parents and communities, in a systematic campaign to smother native culture, to wipe out their language so as to remake them in the image of the rest of Canada.

As early as the turn of the century, the government recognized industrial schools were an abject failure, but then passed subsequent amendments to the Indian Act to fill different iterations of boarding schools with successive generations of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children. Mr. Harper acknowledged the difficult, indisputable facts: The children were deprived of the necessary nurturing of their parents and communities, the food and housing was inadequate to the job. Many died of disease in the church-run schools and thousands were abused sexually, physically and emotionally. The crushing effect that residential schools had on aboriginal culture, language and traditions gave rise to generations of parents unable to appropriately nurture their own children, Mr. Harper acknowledged.

Noting that reconciliation has been sadly delayed by the refusal of governments to apologize, Mr. Harper asked for the forgiveness of aboriginal people.Minister Stephen Harper in the House of Commons Wednesday delivered a historic apology intended to alter Canada's sorry relationship with its aboriginal people. Mr. Harper apologized repeatedly for the damages inflicted on generations of aboriginal children taken from their parents and put into residential schools under a policy that regarded Indians as "inferior and unequal." Mr. Harper was speaking to all Canadians, however, when he properly noted the attitudes that inspired the residential schools policy have no place in this country today."

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Our fault, not yours (The Winnipeg Free Press 6/13)