Mr. Speaker, they were between 6 months and 18 years of age. They were still children: girls filled with dreams and boys filled with energy. Little ones just starting their lives who looked to the future with innocence and genuine hope. They had their whole lives ahead of them. The life they left was perhaps not ideal—many were poor or lived in orphanages—but it was their life. Yet that life would change dramatically overnight.
From 1869 to 1948, Great Britain deported more than 150,000 children in order to populate its colonies. They were loaded by the dozen onto boats bound for Australia, New Zealand and Canada. These children had no idea what awaited them. They had been promised a better life and painted a rosy picture of what lay in store. But when they reached their destination, reality would shatter any dreams they had left.
These thousands of children, some of whom were taken away from their families, travelled across oceans. When they arrived in Canada, the British home children, as they are known today, were used as cheap labour.
Certainly, many of them were mistreated or sexually abused. That is a sad fact, but it is part of Canada's and Quebec's history, and we must acknowledge it today.
That history is also my family's history. My mother's name is Hélène Rowley, and her father was John James Rowley. Of Irish origin, he was born in 1890 in Soho, which was not the radical chic neighbourhood it is today, but one of the poor parts of London depicted in Dickens' novels.
For 10 years, my maternal grandparents lived with us. We celebrated my grandfather's birthday every year on September 6, only to learn when he was in his sixties that he had been born on June 3. Moreover, he died on September 6, 1971, which is a bit ironic.
He never talked about that part of his life. From what I have learned, many home children did not talk about it because they wanted to forget. Many did not talk about it because they were ashamed. Yet they had no reason to be ashamed. Others had reason to be ashamed, but not the victims.
The father of one of my colleagues is also a home child. She does not want to talk about it. There is a code of silence, as in the case of concentration camp survivors who refused for many years to talk about their experience, because they wanted to forget what had happened to them.
I did not know. After I was elected, I was telling my story during an interview, and I explained how my grandfather had come to live here, but I did not know about home children. The association came to see me and told me that my grandfather was more than likely a home child. There are many who do not even know it.
However, I can say that my grandfather was not mistreated. He was taken in by the Leduc family of Saint-Benoît du lac des Deux Montagnes. He had a happy childhood, then met Marie-Joseph Pilon of Rigaud. They had four children, including my mother, Hélène. He was a happy man, a warm man who did not talk about that part of his life. He had forgotten it, or wanted to.
This part of our history is not widely understood. However, British home children and their descendants now represent 12% of the population, some 4 million people. We owe it to them to remember. We must recognize the injustice, the abuse and the suffering, as well as the work these people have done and their contributions to our communities. After all these years, we have to acknowledge their true story, which is also ours.
The shame here is in the wrongdoing, not in the apology. What is shameful is the fact that we tolerated this situation for so long, for nearly a century, that we tacitly accepted this insidious form of slavery. What is shameful here is not having opened our eyes any sooner.
Now it is time to face the facts. The voice of history is loud and clear, and we must respond. We must stand up and apologize to the victims for the tragedy they experienced.
It is not hard to apologize. The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologized during a ceremony in Canberra. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, also announced plans for an official apology on behalf of the United Kingdom.
But in Canada, where the majority of British home children were sent, the government is still refusing to recognize the evidence and apologize properly.
We will support this motion. We thank the member for moving it, but more must be done. The government must accept its responsibilities immediately and not only honour the memory of British home children, but also apologize. It is the right thing to do.
