Mention Inuit in residential school apology, group asks PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | 11:34 AM CT
CBC News
The national organization representing Inuit wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to apologize specifically to Inuit in his formal apology to former residential school students on Wednesday.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Mary Simon said more than 3,500 Inuit attended residential schools across Canada.
She said she wants Harper to recognize them in the government's official apology, which will be issued Wednesday afternoon in the House of Commons.
"It needs to be sincere, and the sincerity must be judged, I think, by two things: first, [in] the reach and sentiment of the words that are being used, and [in] the way in which an apology figures, I think, in a new and more healthy and more respectful way of acknowledging and fulfilling the relationship," Simon said Monday.
In total, about 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
While in residential schools, students were forced to assimilate into Canadian society and lose their original languages and cultural values. Many also reported experiencing physical and sexual abuse at the schools.
Former Nunavut MP Jack Anawak, himself a former residential school student, said he knows Harper had asked Inuit and First Nations people for their input on what should be in the apology.
"There was Inuit and other First Nations groups involved in the drafting of his apology," Anawak said.
"I hope that he will listen to those people when he does write down and issue the apology to the aboriginal people of Canada."
Simon is expected to be among aboriginal leaders attending Wednesday's apology.
She said she met with Harper to discuss the apology, but she won't know if he has complied with her request until she hears what he has to say.
