Tories On Defensive Over Apology To Survivors

Tories On Defensive Over Apology To Survivors

Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 16:25

 

 

A spokesman for former students says an official apology for abuse in Native residential schools has become a source of more hurt.

 

Ted Quewezance says the National Residential School Survivors’ Society and the Assembly of First Nations have been shut out by planners in the Prime Minister’s Office.

 

Stephen Harper is set to officially apologize next Wednesday for decades of abuse in the schools across Canada.

 

But Quewezance says neither his group nor the assembly has been consulted on the final draft as expected.

 

Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl dismissed those complaints in the House of Commons today.

 

Strahl said he has met, and will continue to meet, with survivors, church leaders and First Nations groups before the apology is made.

 

Strahl also said the government wants Harper’s declaration to be “meaningful and respectful”.

 

Liberal Aboriginal Affairs critic Anita Neville says input from former students has been minimal — and it still isn’t clear how the highly symbolic event will unfold in the House of Commons.

 

(courtesy of The Canadian Press)