Canada apologises to Indians for years of abuse in schools

Published on Wednesday 11 June 2008 22:11

CANADA'S prime minister was to offer a public apology yesterday for his country's century-long policy of forcing Canadian Indian children into Christian schools to strip them of their aboriginal culture.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 children were sent to the state-funded schools. Many were forced to leave their parents' homes, as part of a programme to integrate them into Canadian society, and became victims of physical and sexual abuse.

At least 200 former students were invited to Ottawa to witness what native leaders called a pivotal moment for Canada's one million aboriginals, who remain the nation's poorest and most disadvantaged group.

Michael Cachagee was four years old when he was taken from his parents and sent to a school. "The intent was to destroy the Indian," he said. He is one of 80,000 surviving students.

"Aboriginal Canadians have been waiting for a very long time to hear an apology from the Parliament of Canada," Stephen Harper, the prime minister, told MPs this week.

At dawn yesterday, aboriginals set a sacred fire and conducted a sunrise ceremony near parliament, ahead of Mr Harper's announcement.

More than 100 people gathered for a ceremony at the site of a former residential school in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, on the east coast.

Mr Cachagee, who won a seat on the floor of the House of Commons to listen, said the apology could not be "shallow and hollow".

He spent 12 years at three different schools from 1944. "I was beaten. I was put in tubs of hot water. I suffered great pains of hunger. I was force-fed rotten food. They called me all kinds of names," he said.

Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said: "This is not just about survivors; this is about Canada coming to terms with its past and maturing as a nation."

Canada has offered compensation to those who were taken from their families.