PM to apologize for residential school abuses, minister says

by KAREN HOWLETT — May 16, 2008

TORONTO -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper will strive to begin closing one of the darkest chapters in Canada's history by formally apologizing to survivors of residential schools on June 11.

Mr. Harper will make the long-awaited apology from the floor of the House of Commons, where he will speak directly to the survivors of the residential schools. Many of them continue to struggle with the painful legacy of the schools.

The government initially announced in last fall's Throne Speech that it would apologize to those still living who were among the more than 100,000 native children who passed through the schools from 1874 until the mid-1970s, when most closed their doors. The promise came after the government resisted repeated requests for an apology. Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced the date yesterday.

"This is going to be a very meaningful and respectful apology that first nations have been asking for, for many years," Mr. Strahl told reporters in Toronto following a speech at the Empire Club of Canada.

Michael Cachagee, president of the National Residential School Survivors' Society, said the apology will be meaningless if it does not include an acknowledgment of all the "devastation" that took place inside these schools.

"Any apology without supportive actions is really an empty apology," Mr. Cachagee said in an interview.

He himself is a survivor of the system. Now 68, Mr. Cachagee was enrolled in his first residential school in Chapleau, Ont., when he was four years old. He was also a student at schools in Moose Factory and Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario before leaving at age 16.

The schools were an extension of religious missionary work. They started receiving federal support in 1874 as part of Canada's campaign to assimilate aboriginals into Christian society by obliterating their language, religion and culture.

The stories told by survivors reveal that many of them still struggle with their residential-school experience. Children were forced to abandon their native language and culture, leaving many of them feeling that they did not belong to their native community or to white society. Thrashings were part of everyday life.

A Globe and Mail examination of documents in the National Archives showed that as many as half of the aboriginal children who attended the early years of residential schools died of tuberculosis. They died despite warnings to the federal government that overcrowding, poor sanitation and a lack of medical care were creating a breeding ground for disease.

The apology will coincide with the launch of cross-Canada hearings later this year by a truth and reconciliation commission, which will write the official history of the schools that operated in all corners of the country. It will be a monumental task given that thousands of former students and school employees are long dead. Many key government and church records have been destroyed; documents that survive are buried on hazy microfiche in the National Archives and elsewhere.

Mr. Strahl acknowledged that many former students also feel an apology from the Prime Minister is necessary to help bring about reconciliation between native communities and the rest of Canada.

"I'm just very pleased that we're going to get this done in this spring session," he said.

Source:The Globe and Mail