CANADA
Leader-Post
BY MARK KENNEDY, POSTMEDIA NEWS FEBRUARY 13, 2014
The Harper government must release its archival files on the residential schools saga or the full truth will remain hidden from Canadians, says the head of the country’s largest aboriginal group.
Assembly of First Nations national chief Shawn Atleo reacted strongly to recent revelations by Postmedia News that the Conservative government appears to be dragging its feet on a courtordered obligation to provide millions of documents from Library and Archives Canada to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is examining the residential schools scandal.
“If we’re going to achieve reconciliation, then the full truth needs to be uncovered,” said Atleo.
He said the scandal is “one of the most shameful chapters in Canadian history” and it’s important to document everything – even the “worst experiences” and how it traumatized First Nations communities. Between the 1870s and 1996, about 150,000 aboriginal children were pulled from their homes by the federal government and sent to the church-run schools, where many suffered physical and sexual abuse and at least 4,000 died.
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