CANADA
Toronto Star
Back in 2008 Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Canada’s aboriginal peoples for Ottawa’s role in trying to “kill the Indian in the child” by removing 150,000 children to residential schools where cultural assimilation was the goal and 6,000 perished. He called it a “great harm” and vowed his support for communities that are struggling to this day to recover.
“We are now joining you on this journey,” he pledged.
Yet when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its report this week calling for a bold new era in Crown/native relations, Harper mustered little more than an indifferent shrug. He took credit in Parliament for setting up the commission. And he defended his government’s record, saying “vast amounts of money” have been earmarked for jobs, schooling, and health.
But he didn’t say a word at the commission’s closing ceremony. Unlike Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words “cultural genocide.” And apart from throwing a token $1 million to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to help house its records, he didn’t endorse any of the commission’s 94 recommendations.
This was a missed opportunity to showcase Ottawa’s willingness to invest more than lip service in the new, healthier relationship the commission called for with the country’s 1.4 million indigenous people. Canadians expect better of their leadership.
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