Parliament apologises to native Canadians

Prime minister Stephen Harper made an official government apology to native Canadians for the country’s past practice of taking aboriginal children from their families and forcing them to attend state-funded schools meant to assimilate them.

The children were often physically and sexually abused there.

Mr Harper, speaking in parliament, said it was a sad chapter in the country’s history.

“Today, we recognise that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country,” he said, as 11 aboriginal leaders looked on just feet away. His address in the House of Commons was broadcast live nationwide.

The apology comes just months after Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd made a similar gesture to the so-called Stolen Generations – thousands of the continent’s Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under assimilation policies that lasted from 1910 to 1970.

In Canada, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s as part of a programme to assimilate them into Canadian society.

“The government of Canada now recognises that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes, and we apologise,” Mr Harper said.

“These institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled and we apologise for failing to protect you.”

Hundreds of former students were invited to Ottawa to witness what native leaders call a pivotal moment for Canada’s more than a million aboriginals, who today remain the country’s poorest and most disadvantaged group.

There are more than 80,000 surviving students of the schools. Many students died of tuberculosis and other diseases at the poorly-kept facilities.

In addition to the 11 aboriginal leaders in attendance yesterday, the oldest school survivor, 104-year-old Marguerite Wabano, was on the floor of the House of Commons. Hundreds of aboriginals watched from the public gallery and from the front lawn of parliament.

“Finally, we heard Canada say it is sorry,” Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said from the floor.

Mr Fontaine wore a traditional native headdress, and he and other native leaders were allowed to speak from the floor after opposition parties demanded it.

“Never again will this House consider us an Indian problem for just being who we are,” Mr Fontaine said. “We heard the government of Canada take full responsibility.”

One aboriginal banged his drum inside the House of Commons during ovations.

Willie Blackwater, who was repeatedly raped and beaten by a dorm supervisor at a residential school when he was nine, called the apology a pivotal moment in his life.

“I think this is a start of a long healing relationship,” he said.

Michael Cachagee, president of the National Residential School Survivors’ Society, said it was a sincere apology.

Mr Cachagee was just four when he was taken from his parents. He spent 12 and a half years at three different schools in Canada beginning in 1944 and was sexually and physically abused.

“I feel really good. I was a bit troubled and concerned, but what really made my day was looking up from the floor and seeing all those brown faces up there,” said Mr Cachagee, who had a seat at the ceremony. “It was a good day for Canada.”

In addition to the apology, a truth and reconciliation commission will examine government policy and take testimony from survivors. The goal is to give survivors a forum to tell their stories and educate Canadians about a grim period in the country’s history.