Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this very important issue in the House.
I first want to thank the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River for bringing forward this resolution challenging all of us in this place to come forward and issue a collective apology to our first nations with respect to the residential school situation that we are still trying to resolve in this country.
I also want to thank my own colleague, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, for the excellent work she is doing to try to move this item forward and get justice done in this country for all of the really important people concerned.
In my own community of Sault Ste. Marie, there is an elderly gentleman named Fred who walks his bike around town, winter, summer, fall and spring. We can see Fred walking his bike, with his belongings, around the city of Sault Ste. Marie. Fred is a survivor of residential schools. Fred has become a bit of an institution in our city and is much loved by everyone.
On the day the agreement on residential schools was signed, not that long ago, I was on my way to a luncheon with the Shingwauk survivors of residential schools in my city, who have been meeting for a number of years now to keep themselves together and to provide support as they, in partnership with all of the other survivors across the country, interacted and spoke with government to try to find resolution. They were having a luncheon on this particular day, pre-set by some number of months. They meet regularly, but on that day they were going to be celebrating the agreement.
That day, as I drove down Queen Street to the luncheon, I saw something that I had never seen before. Fred actually was riding his bicycle. That is how important this agreement was to him and to the folks he was going to be joining for lunch that day. All of them there, Fred included, told me that without an apology from the government for the wrongs that were done to these wonderful, noble people, this journey would not be complete.
Therefore, I think it is very important that today we in the House, both in participating in the debate and in the vote that will take place soon after, together send a message to our first nations people that we are sorry for the damage that was done, for the wrong that was imposed, and indicate that we want to move forward from here in a way that speaks of further growth, development and partnership that reflects a respect for the culture, the history and the traditions of our first nations people.
In my own community, the obvious example of a residential school was of course the Shingwauk Indian Residential School experience. It is interesting, because the Shingwauk Indian Residential School reflects the wonderful history, tradition and past of our first nations people, building and living out their vision of what it is to be fully engaged and involved in their land and in this country, in partnership, in many ways, with the new arrivals, as they reached out to share, to include and to work them with in order to protect a way of living that they knew was vital and valuable and that they wanted to pass on to future generations.
Chief Shingwauk was chief of the Ojibwa. He was loyal to King George and fought along with the British army in many engagements. He fought alongside Tecumseh against the Americans in the war of 1812. He represented the Ojibwa in signing the Robinson-Huron Treaty in 1850. This treaty set aside, for example, the Garden River Reserve for Ojibwa in my riding. That school closed in 1970.
Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association estimates that there are approximately 2,000 survivors in the Algoma Manitoulin region who are waiting for this apology today and, in fact, a more formal apology from the government itself in the not too distant future.
The Shingwauk alumni council emphasizes that all the elements of the comprehensive strategy are equally important and must be fully developed and fully implemented. It says that a full and formal apology, a settlement package for all former students, a revised ADR process that will address serious abuse, long term community based healing programs, resources and means to support survivor based organizations, a truth and reconciliation process involving all Canadians, a nation-wide education strategy, commemoration and other identified elements are appropriate. However, central to all of this is this full and formal apology.
They are not the only ones calling for this apology. Church groups, which were involved in this very damaging and difficult time of our history, are calling for an apology as well. In fact, as we speak, a meeting is going on in Winnipeg of chiefs. They are discussing this very issue.
Three Protestant national churches have called for a full national apology by the Canadian government: the Anglican, Presbyterian and United churches. Reverend James Scott, the United Church's general council officer for residential schools, said:
It is a living legacy, the pain is in the present. Apology can be a significant step toward healing our broken relationships.
He also said:
It is completely unacceptable for the [the Prime Minister's]government to use the fact that an apology was not part of the Settlement Agreement as an excuse not to apologize....After all, the Common Experience Payment, which is a central component of the Agreement, recognizes the systemic harms that were inherent in the education policy of operating residential schools.
In a letter to the minister in August 2006, the United Church's then Moderator, the Right Reverend Peter Short, wrote:
It is our concern that the Agreement, which attempts to address the harm done to former students, will seem hollow and disingenuous if a national apology does not accompany its implementation. Indeed, we are aware that from the standpoint of those most affected, those with whom we are attempting to set things right, an apology is central to the true spirit of reconciliation.
The United Church went on to say:
We believe that a national apology, partnered with the Settlement Agreement, will be a historic step toward closing this tragic chapter of our past and fostering a new and positive spirit in which to work together with all Aboriginal peoples towards a more just and promising future.
In the last year or so I have crossed the country meeting and talking with people and looking at the issue of poverty. Overwhelmingly, most everywhere I went, the face of poverty was aboriginal, a situation that should not exist in a country as wealthy as ours. With our resources and intelligence, it is a situation that should not be allowed to exist.
I also discovered, as I crossed the country and looked at the terrible reality of poverty in so many of our communities, and the aboriginal face of poverty, was people were yearning, calling and hoping for a vision. They told me that they wanted the government to put forward a vision, a vision of our country consistent with our history and our efforts to combat the geography in which we live, the weather with which we deal and the distances that often come between communities, a vision that talks about sharing, caring and about community.
I suggest today that we will not get to that vision of a caring, compassionate and wonderful country rooted in community until we right the relationship with our first nations people. In my view the beginning of righting that relationship is an apology, which must come from the House and from the government.