c. 2008 Religion News Service

TORONTO _ For the second time in a decade, the Canadian government has apologized to the country’s aboriginal peoples for the its role in abuse at church-run residential schools.

In a 10-minute address to Parliament on Wednesday (June 11), Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an historic apology for the mistreatment of native children in schools that were run jointly by the government and four Christian churches.

“The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language,” Harper said to an audience that included a select group of 12 native leaders.

“The government sincerely apologizes and asks for forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.”

Begun in the 1870s, the schools forcibly removed aboriginal children from their homes in an attempt to assimilate them into the dominant white, Christian culture.

Not only were students prohibited from speaking their native languages and engaging in cultural or spiritual practices, many were physically, emotionally and sexually abused.

Harper quoted one 19th century official who said the point of the schools was “to kill the Indian in the child.”

“The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history,” Harper said. “Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country.”

About 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Metis (mixed-race) children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the residential schools, which began operating in the late 19th century. The last one closed in 1996.

In 1998, Ottawa expressed “profound regret” not just for the establishment of residential schools, but for all the “past actions of the federal government” toward aboriginals. A $350-million “healing fund” was announced to help turn the page.

Harper made only passing reference to the fact that the 132 federally supported schools were run jointly with the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United Churches.

In 1986, the United Church was the first of the four to apologize for its role in the schools. It was followed by the Anglican Church in 1993 and the Presbyterians in 1994.

The Presbyterian Church has been named in fewer than 2 percent of the roughly 10,000 legal claims for compensation made by aboriginals to date. The United Church has been named in 8 percent, the Anglican Church in approximately 18 percent and the Roman Catholic Church in 72 percent of cases.

Canada’s Roman Catholic Church is the only one of the four churches that has issued no apology or contributed to a $1.9 billion compensation package announced by the government in 2005 to benefit some 65,000 survivors of residential schools.

A statement from Archdiocese of Toronto noted that only 16 of 62 Canadian dioceses (and some three dozen religious orders) were associated with the schools, and neither the entire Catholic Church nor the bishops’ conference played an official role.

“These are the reasons why an apology on residential schools has not been made by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops or in the name of the Catholic Church in Canada,” the statement said.

It noted, however, that in a brief submitted to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1993, the Canadian bishops acknowledged that “various types of abuse experienced at some residential schools have moved us to a profound examination of conscience as a Church.”

KRE/CM END CSILLAG