TURTLE ISLAND NEWS January 14, 1998 "IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT": Ottawa tells residential school survivors "WE'RE SORRY" OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chretien says he sees no reason to issue a formal apology to aboriginal peoples in the House of Commons as he did for Japanese Canadians interred during the Second World War. Instead, Chretien says he shares in a "collective" expression of regret about Ottawa's past mistakes dealing with natives, but that doesn't mean he has to make a personal apology. "The way I run my government I let ministers handle their departments," Chretien said outside a cabinet meeting Friday. "The policy is a policy that I subscribe to, that I have approved. But I think that I don't want to be all the time in front of the media on behalf of the government. I have a very good cabinet (who) are responsible to communicate the policies of the government." Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart expressed "profound regret" this week for more than a century of injustices toward native people and also said the government is "deeply sorry" for sexual and physical abuse at residential schools. During a noon-hour ceremony on Parliament Hill some aboriginal leaders complained the so-called statement of reconciliation didn't go far enough. They also wondered why Chretien didn't deliver the statement personally. "She said that we are sorry collectively about some of the errors of the past," the prime minister replied Friday. He refused to be drawn into a semantic debate over whether the statement amounted to an apology and, if so, why the government didn't call it that. "Why one word or the other?" he asked. "Why make a point of that?" The apology came after years of lobbying, lawsuits and an inquiry into the sad plight of aboriginals. It was the centrepiece of Ottawa's response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which recommended that the government give natives a sweeping new deal. The 4,000-page report, released in November 1996, made more than 400 recommendations. At a three hour ceremony on Parliament Hill, Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart read a statement saying the government is "deeply sorry" for the role it played in the development and administration of residential schools and regrets its treatment of aboriginals.

The apology, was accompanied by a $350 million healing fund that will go toward community counselling and treatment for those who suffered abuse at the schools, which were set up to assimilate Indians into white culture. The royal commission report devoted 50 pages to a stinging indictment of the schools, which existed in all but New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Phil Fontaine, head of the Assembly of First Nations, was one of the many aboriginal people who have come forward with sad stories of abuse at the schools, which numbered about 80 at their peak in the 1930s. Some existed into the 1980s. Starting in 1989, abusers, including former staff, were taken to court in British Columbia and Yukon and convicted of multiple counts of gross indecency and sexual assault. The cases opened a floodgate of memories and there are now hundreds of lawsuits against the federal government. More than 100 lawsuits have been settled and more are pending. The apology for residential schools, was part of a "statement of reconciliation" that Stewart offered natives. The response to the royal commission also included money to improve life on reserves, including programs for health promotion, youth employment, and career development. Some of the money was already promised last year in the Liberal election platform. Ottawa's commitment falls short of the $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year in new spending for the next 20 years that the report recommended. As well as new spending, the government promised to speed up dealing with a backlog in land claims. Stewart also set out a plan for the government's dealings with First Nations in the rest of the Liberal mandate. The $58 million royal commission, the most expensive in Canada's history, was created by the former Conservative government in 1991 after the Oka crisis in Quebec. Apology accepted!