First Nations group meeting with Pope about Indian Residential Schools experience
First Nations delegation to meet privately with Pope
April 28, 2009
On the eve of its private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Wednesday, a small delegation from Canada's Assembly of First Nations hailed the event as "historic and momentous."
During the meeting behind closed doors, the Pope is expected to read a statement about the Roman Catholic Church's role in the residential school system in Canada.
The church administered three-quarters of residential schools across Canada, but has yet to apologize for the abuse suffered by many of the 90,000 former students still alive.
Assembly of First Nations Leader Phil Fontaine is part of the delegation, which also includes elders and survivors.
"We're going to be in conversation with the Holy Father, and we're going to talk about the residential school experience," he told CBC News.
Isabella Tatar, head of the Legacy of Hope Foundation, which seeks to create awareness about the effects of residential schools, said the meeting represents an important step forward.
"The fact that survivors, their experiences are being validated, I think that will serve a very effective tool or forum for closure, not necessarily for everyone, but I think for a significant number of people," she said.
However, the director of the National Residential Schools Survivors' Society is not part of the delegation.
Michael Cachagee said he was not part of talks leading up to the meeting, nor was he invited to the Vatican.
Cachagee spent 13 years in residential schools in northern Ontario and is now a leading advocate for fellow survivors.
"I don't want to sound that I'm against the apology if the Pope chooses to make [one]. But the Catholic Church … has been very, very reluctant to contribute resources into the settlement agreement to assist survivors. Everyone has but them," he told CBC News in a phone interview from Sault St. Marie, Ont.
150,000 children taken from families
Other Christian denominations implicated in abuse at residential schools have already apologized — the Anglican Church in 1993, the Presbyterian Church in 1994 and the United Church in 1998.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also offered an apology on behalf of the government of Canada in the House of Commons last year.
About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were taken from their families to attend the schools.
There were about 130 such schools in Canada — with some in every territory and province except Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick — from as early as the 19th century to 1996.
In September 2007, the government formalized a $1.9-billion compensation plan for victims.
The government also established a truth and reconciliation commission to examine the legacy of the residential schools.
However, the commission has been in limbo since October 2008, when Justice Harry LaForme resigned as its chairman.
Its remaining commissioners, Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Morley, announced in January that they will step down effective June 1.
A selection committee led by former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci and comprising aboriginal and church leaders is in the process of finding new commissioners.
The First Nations' audience at the Vatican takes place less than a month before a National Day of Healing and Reconciliation in Canada.