Harper apology received with mixed emotions

People across the country gathered last Wednesday afternoon to hear the long-awaited public apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of Canada, for the wrong-doings aboriginal children were subjected to at residential schools.
Locally, the Fort Frances Chiefs Secretariat set up the banquet room at La Place Rendez-Vous so people here could watch the historic event together.
They were engaged in a full ceremony with a drum and opening prayers by elder Harry Windego. They also were led in a Christian prayer by Deacon Elmer Mainville.
“We forgive the abusers and we bless them,” Mainville prayed.
Everyone in the room then prayed the “Our Father” in unison, asking for the courage to forgive their trespassers and to be able to move forward in their healing.
“It is my sincere hope that the apology is meaningful to the survivors we have here today and also to their families,” Tammy Ryll, with the Fort Frances Chiefs Secretariat, said beforehand.
The banquet room was decorated with a banner that read “Hope-Honour-Healing,” as well as a “class photo” of children who attended the residential school located here in Fort Frances.
While the photo was being hung, groups gathered around to catch curious glimpses at familiar faces. The names at the bottom matched the photos of the faces for all but one little girl.
When 1:30 p.m. rolled around, the more than 100 people on hand found their seats and focused their attention on the scene from the House of Commons they had all come to see.
Harper apologized to the 150,000 students who attended the 132 federally-run schools across Canada. He noted some 80,000 survivors remain with the legacy and the pain of the atrocities that occurred within the school walls.
The prime minister apologized for the sexual, physical, and mental abuses that were done to the children, their families, their communities, and their culture.
To the admitted cultural genocide and attempted isolation and assimilation of the native culture, Harper said “sorry.”
Many described the apology as sincere, well-done, and needed—a cultural benchmark for healing and moving forward.
Though the apology was largely well-received, though it still was a very emotional gathering. Their relief for the apology, and the memories that were dragged to the forefront of their minds, were a little too much for some.
A few who attended retreated to the privacy of the hallways or the deck outside so they could cry.
“I spent 12 years in a residential school in Alberta, and I was happy to hear someone apologize for the harm they did to me and to thousands of others like me,” said local resident Buddy Loyie.
“Many will never know the horror of those years or the murders of some of the children in the unmarked graves that dot our country, but they will at least know some of the terrible things that were done to us,” he added.
“We suffered in silence for countless years as the government tried to take everything out of us that was ‘Indian’ and make us ‘white.’
“We were shamed and beaten daily, and I asked God when I was a little boy why he hated me so much that he would do this to me; place me in a place where I was hated for being who I was—an ‘Indian’ child that had to have the ‘Indian’ beaten out of him,” Loyie continued.
“I suffered deeply for the abuse I received and would not even be considered a victim of the violence done to me. Others received much worse and were even killed.
“Efforts to silence those people who talk about these things still go on,” Loyie noted. “But an apology has been made and it made me feel good that someone finally did the right thing.
“They cannot take my years of suffering away, but they made my load a little lighter,” he remarked. “I am happy that they apologized and I thank them for the courage they had to do that.
“They did the right thing.”
Loyie’s words captured the essence of what many others thought about the event.
Newly-elected Treaty #3 Grand Chief Diane Kelly, who witnessed the event firsthand in Ottawa, released a statement that recognized the apology as a positive moment in Canadian history.
She described the apology as “bittersweet” because it plays as a reminder to the resilience of Anishinaabe people.
“The apology marks a recognition of a dark chapter in our history, and hope for a new beginning for our survivors and for all Treaty #3 citizens,” Grand Chief Kelly said.
“[This] gives us an opportunity to increase awareness of the devastating effects of residential schools, as well as to reach out to survivors to honour and communicate the value of their survival as Anishinaabe people.
“The apology is not the end of an era,” she admitted. “But hopefully a renewed nation-to-nation relationship.
“This . . . acknowledgment will assist us in working towards reconciliation,” Grand Chief Kelly said.
“This day will help us to put that pain behind us,” echoed Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Three community gatherings were held across Treaty #3 to witness the public apology.
There were seven residential schools within Treaty #3: St. Marguerite’s (Fort Frances), St. Mary’s (Kenora), Pelican (Sioux Lookout), McIntosh and Cecilia Jaffrey (Kenora), and Fort Alexander and Shoal in Manitoba.
Cecilia Jaffrey was the last to close its doors in 1976.
Go to fortfrances.tv for more coverage.