Mr. Speaker, the sad legacy of the residential school era is well known to most Canadians, except for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development who believes these schools were simply set up to educate.
In fact, they were not. They were set up to assimilate a people against their will. They were places of disease, hunger, overcrowding and despair. Many children died. In 1914 a departmental official said “fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein”. Yet, nothing was done.
I ask the Prime Minister again, would he please apologize to the residential school survivors?