Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced that he will make an official apology on behalf of the government for the horrific abuse suffered by victims of Canada’s residential school system over the past 100 years.
Harper will make the apology in the House of Commons on June 11th.
While it is good to see the government showing some sort of accountability to the extreme genocide they have inflicted on Aboriginal peoples, I have to wonder if Harper even really knows what he’s apologizing for.
Because his government has so far:
-Refused to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, making Canada an international human rights laughing stock
-Cut the Status of Women which included major funding losses for the Sisters in Spirit Initiative that advocated for victims of violence at the Native Women’s Association of Canada, which was their largest contribution agreement
-Thrown out the Kelowna Accord, which, say what you will about it, was the first time the government actually asked Aboriginal people to be at the same table and collectively make decisions for our own people
-Has not done anything to help our people protect our own land and silently watched our leaders be thrown in jail, from the KI6 in Northern Ontario to Mohawk territory to the tar sands in Alberta, etc. More than 20% of inmates in Canada are Aboriginal, while we only make up roughly 3% of the population.
And the list goes on……..
90% of Aboriginal people today are affected by the residential school system on some level, the last of these schools closing in Saskatchewan in 1996.
So is an apology in order? Absolutely. Does the Conservative government really know what they are doing? I think not.
For starters, it’s going to take much more than an apology.
Fort Resolution residential school, North West Territories
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five comments
Jessica! I just read this story and I am going to post it to my blog!! I agree with you there that the efforts will have to be much more than a single apology to the the Native people in Canada to fully heal what has happened!
Posted by Cecelia
May 17, 2008, 9:02 PM
What a powerful statement,Jessica.
Posted by piKe
May 18, 2008, 2:08 AM
You probably remember that one of the first things Harper did was apologise for the Chinese head tax when he became PM: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/1...
The residential schools apology sounds pretty similar: on paper, yeah, great news that the govt is apologising and acknowledging something horrible and disgusting.
But when you actually look at the numbers, the apology is pretty...hollow. For example Harper compensated head tax survivors or widows with $20,000 between 400 people. The children of head tax survivors were NOT eligible for payments, and since head tax ended in 1923 you can imagine that few of the people who actually paid head tax are still alive, though their children (and grandchildren) who were deeply affected by it are. They don't get anything though.
And also, head tax went up to $500 by the 1910s. At that time, $500 was about the price of a house for Chinese immigrants. And now they're getting $20,000 between 400 people? $20,000 wouldn't buy even a single family a house today. The payments are symbolic, but adjusting them just a little for inflation would be less insulting.
This is not to demean or disrespect the efforts of many many Chinese Canadians who fought for the apology, but I can't help but feel really angry that after all the work, Harper essentially hijacked the issue to make his govt look good when it first came to power. Apologising the way he did just seemed like an easy, meaningless way to make his govt look a little bit less conservative, and like it actually cared about race issues.
And the way the apology was couched (a moral blemish on Canada's soul) indicates a belief that racism and disgusting immigration laws in Canada don't exist anymore. Unfortunately they're still very much alive, and creating a such a huge distinction between the Canada of then and the Canada of now is just plain dishonest - esp when you read above about how Harper has treated the First Nations people.
It's really heart-wrenching: on the one hand I want to feel happy that the govt is making an apology about residential schools, a part of our history which makes me feel sick, esp as a settler. And I worry that pointing out the holes in the argument seems like I don't appreciate all the work that First Nations people and allies have done to draw attention to this. On the other hand, my feelings that this apology is empty (and to offer an empty apology for such a horrendous thing is really kinda gruesome) makes it really hard to be happy.
Posted by Thea
May 18, 2008, 11:08 AM
Thank you--great post.
Posted by Katie
May 19, 2008, 9:26 AM
Apologies are like insurance policy pay outs - you don't want the money, you want your property back the way it was before it was damaged. Imagine if your neighbor had abused your dog, caused it real physical damage. Then offered to pay you a few bucks, said he was really sorry, and agreed to let you talk to a third party to hear how upset you were. Would you get any satisfaction from this?
In this case there is no mention of trying to take things back to where they were. I do not see that there will ever be an offer to re-write all paperwork to remove the "proper" European names given to the studentsand substitute original personal and family names. There will be no offer to provide a setting, facility and an pportunity classes for any residential students or their families to attend to become familiar with ancestral customs, language or spiritual tradition. There will be no offer to de-convert students and their descendants from christianity if they want. There will be no effort to find where all the bodies are buried to return them home or at least let relatives know where they lie.
Posted by Woodwose
June 11, 2008, 6:01 PM
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