An upcoming apology by the Prime Minister of Canada to former students of Indian Residential Schools has a Squamish Nation chief “hopeful” that it will help survivors move on from a difficult era in Canadian history.
Chief Gibby Jacob of the Squamish Nation told Pique Newsmagazine on June 6 that he hopes the apology is a meaningful gesture to an estimated 100,000 former students who attended the schools.
“It's been a long time coming, and hopefully it means something
to all of those who've been traumatized spiritually, physically, emotionally
and mentally,” he said. “My hope is that the collective First Nations people
see this as an opportunity to close a door and quit being imprisoned and
victimized by the residential school trauma.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be making the apology in the
House of Commons on June 11 at about noon PST. The prime minister will rise in
the House and recount some of the history of residential schools before issuing
a formal apology. Opposition party leaders will then have a chance to respond
to the apology in the House.
Following the apology, Members of Parliament will then proceed
outside the House where they will partake in a series of ceremonial exchanges.
Those proceedings may include exchanges of tobacco as well as
smudging ceremonies, which are often comprised of burning sweet grass as part
of a cleansing ritual for the start of a meeting, according to Chuck Strahl,
minister of Indian Affairs and Member of Parliament for Chilliwack-Fraser
Canyon, who spoke to reporters on a conference call.
Jacob hopes that those who suffered in residential school will
be able to derive some personal healing from the apology, though he fears that
for some, it may not bring much closure.
“What happens if this means nothing?” he said. “My fear is this
will turn out to be something that is not viewed as positive or will bring
ultimate closure.
“So what we’re going to be doing is going back to what has
always been our strength and what has kept us alive as a people throughout this
time, (and that) is our culture.”
Chief Leonard Andrew of the Lil’Wat Nation said receipt of the
apology by his people will be affected largely by the way it is delivered.
“It all really depends on how he apologizes to the people
because it’s been a long, long process,” he said, adding that he’s not sure a
sufficient apology can be delivered to residential school survivors.
“Within my community, probably 90 per cent of my people went to
residential school, but 100 per cent of the people were affected because the
others that didn't go were obviously affected by the fact that their next of
kin were pulled away from home,” Andrew said.
“Whether it's fully accepted, I guess only time will tell.”
The weeks leading up to the apology have not come without
criticism of the government from some groups.
Ted Quewezance, executive director of the National Residential
School Survivors’ Society, issued an open letter to the prime minister on June
3 outlining seven requests that the PM take into account when making the
apology. They included confessing that survivors were “kidnapped” from their
families and “imprisoned” in schools that had had little or no respect for
human dignity.
Quewezance also wrote that an apology letter sent to each
survivor would be appropriate for what was done in residential schools. He
concluded the letter saying, “Anything less than the above is not in our view a
sincere apology and will not be accepted by most of the survivors, their
families and their communities.”
Strahl said on a conference call that the apology will be a
sincere gesture, but did not specifically address Quewezance’s letter, as he
hadn’t seen it.
“I haven't seen the list you’re talking about, but I think I've
seen it in other forms, and I think we've got all the elements in there,” he
told reporters on the call. “Sometimes there are requests that you just can't
do. For instance, one group wrote me and said they expected my children to be
in the audience to hear this, for example.
“I can't say that I can be sure to get my kids there because
they felt it was important for sincerity reasons that my children be there to
listen to it.”
Strahl also faced questions about the apology’s similarity with
one recently issued in Australia.
That apology, delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, focused
on so-called “Stolen Generations,” aboriginal children who, between 1910 and
1970, were taken from their parents and placed in the care of church missions
and white foster families in an effort to assimilate them into Australian
society.
“Our apology is going to be more extensive,” Strahl said. “It's
longer than the Australian one because it's more specific to the residential
school era. The Australian one was good too, of course, but ours, it has to be
a little bit different and I think, in my opinion, better addresses our
Canadian experience.”
A viewing of the apology will be staged on large screens at the
First Nations Summit on June 11 at the Chief Joe Mathias Centre in North
Vancouver.
Chief Leonard Andrew of the Lil’Wat Nation has considered attending, but he said he is more likely to remain home with his family.