Canada to formally apologize to native peoples
The prime minister will address abuses over decades of forced assimilation in residential schools. Some complain the apology is grudging, but it is seen as a landmark in accepting responsibility.
OTTAWA — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will offer a thorough and detailed apology today to the nation's native peoples for abuses and the loss of aboriginal languages and culture they suffered during a century of forced assimilation at residential schools.
The apology has been billed by the government as a chance to redress a dark chapter in Canadian history. But the day before the landmark statement was marked by wrangling over whether native leaders were adequately consulted over the content, and anger that they will not be allowed to respond in the House of Commons.
Some survivors, as the former schoolchildren are widely called, say the apology is coming only grudgingly under intense pressure from native groups, and must be matched by action. But it is widely recognized as a significant step for a government that had previously sought to limit its responsibility for the harm caused by its assimilation policy.
"We've worked very hard to achieve this moment," said Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, who in 1990 was one of the first to come forward with his story of abuse and has spearheaded the movement for an apology. "The apology is extremely important to us and very important to Canada. This is Canada coming to terms with its past and setting the stage for future healing and reconciliation."
For more than a century, native Canadian children were sent to boarding schools run by churches and the government to adapt them to modern society and to Christianize them. Many suffered sexual and psychological abuse, and their detachment from their families and communities has had effects across generations.
Several churches already offered apologies in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the government's head of Indian affairs made a statement of reconciliation in 1998. A lawsuit settled in 2006 created a $1.9-billion compensation fund, and an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission was launched on June 1.
But today's statement is the government's first formal expression of responsibility and remorse for the forced assimilation program and its legacy of damage.
"People want a very thorough apology that not only recognizes the historic events themselves, but talks about the role of the churches and the government and how it happened, that talks about what happened," Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl told reporters Tuesday.
