SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — Papal Apology
April 5, 2022
Honourable senators, there are seminal moments in life when time just stops and events become etched in your heart, your soul and your memory; points in life’s incredible journey when the tectonic plates shift, and one realizes that something extraordinary is taking place that will bring about changes which will impact things for years to come.
One such moment occurred nearly 14 years ago when Prime Minister Stephen Harper rose in the House of Commons in June 2008. This apology, coming about 128 years after the introduction of residential schools, was nothing short of monumental and, indeed, earth-shaking. I know in the case of my peoples, the Mi’kmaq, we kept wondering and hoping that this means of conciliation and atonement would continue to move forward.
Last Friday, at the Vatican, it finally did. His Holiness Pope Francis made an apology to survivors for:
. . . the deplorable conduct of . . . members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart, I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon.
Colleagues, this apology is an equally significant game changer. This is why it is so important that we embrace it, endorse it and actively promote its acceptance.
Already there are some who decry the sincerity of it being rendered, that it doesn’t mean anything unless it is followed up by actions. But I’m not convinced that it represents how the survivors feel. Much of the commentary appears to come from the periphery. Let’s not take that position for granted. Let’s hear, instead, what some Mi’kmaq survivors are saying.
Magit Poulette, 79, is a survivor of Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, an elder from the We’koqma’q First Nation and a devoted Catholic and self-professed “prayer warrior.” She said, “It was very good — I think it really came from his heart.”
Another of the delegates representing Atlantic Canada was Phyllis Googoo, 79, also from We’koqma’q and a member of the community’s support group for survivors. She spent 10 years in residential schools, from the time she was only 4-years-old. The apology left her feeling very happy and with a lump in her throat. It was clearly an emotional event for her.
I’ll leave final comment of the Mi’kmaq to my community’s leader — and my dear and trusted friend — Chief Terry Paul. He said:
Each and every day of my life for the last nearly 40 years as Chief of Membertou, I have carried the memories of the five-year-old boy who went to Shubenacadie Residential School all those years ago.
As I grew, I promised myself that my experiences at residential school would not hold me down. I would not allow the painful times in my life to define the possibility of what I could be, or do.
Honourable senators, I beg you to consider that for the survivors, this is less about justice rendered than it is about being released from the legacy of the unmitigated pain and suffering of the memory of residential school trauma.
Honourable senators, the apology is a gift that allows survivors to finally say, “Our chains are gone; we’ve been set free.” Wela’lioq, thank you.
Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to the apology made by His Holiness Pope Francis to Indigenous peoples on the role of the Catholic Church in the residential school system.
I am a Catholic. I am also an Indian day school survivor. I can tell you that it was important for me to hear the Pope say he was “very sorry” for the conduct of some of its clergy. But I wish he had gone further. The Catholic Church must take full accountability for its role in instigating, supporting and defending the historic and ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada — including in the Indian residential school and Indian day school systems, where hunger, neglect, abuse and death were rampant.
It must also condemn the Doctrine of Discovery and other undoubtedly racist and unjust narratives, which not only depicted Indigenous people as inferior or savages but also enabled the displacement and dispossession of our land and resources.
Colleagues, the partial apology came after a week of meetings in Rome requested by Indigenous delegates. It is a product of the courageous and persistent efforts of survivors and their descendants, who fought for decades to ensure the truth is known while still healing from their trauma.
It is, furthermore, a product of the domestic and international outrage over the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves at the sites of former Indian residential schools. Had it not been for these devastating, but not surprising, discoveries, who knows how much longer it would have taken for the Catholic Church to apologize.
In the next months, Pope Francis must respond to Call to Action 58 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which requires that he come to Canada to issue an apology — one that must be robust and meaningful. In addition, the Catholic Church, which already failed to meet its obligations under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, must use its vast wealth to make substantive financial reparations. It must also turn over all Indigenous artifacts held by the Church and release all relevant documents and records. These next steps are non‑negotiable.
To conclude, colleagues, to me a partial apology is important, but is simply not enough. If the Pope is really committed to the path towards truth, healing, justice and reconciliation, concrete actions and changes by the Catholic Church must follow.
The wrongdoings of the Catholic Church are not just in the past. Indigenous people continue to be impacted, including our children, who are overrepresented in the child welfare system at rates higher than at the height of the Indian residential school system. Wela’lin, thank you.
Honourable senators, my thoughts are with all of the souls who never returned to their lands from residential school.
As you know, last week, a delegation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit representatives met with Pope Francis to seek justice for the genocide perpetrated in the residential schools run by the Catholic Church, under the direction of the Government of Canada.
Residential schools were part of the deliberate assimilation efforts seeking to destroy our rich identities, cultures and languages and to wipe out our histories. Let me quote Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty of the Cree Nation, who was one of the representatives in the delegation that went to Rome.
“We cannot ignore the power of an apology,” she said, saying it can help spur forward efforts aimed at “transforming anger and hurt into a process of peace, love, and freedom.”
The Pope finally apologized to the delegation, but I am thinking of all those here in Canada. For some, this apology offered comfort. For others, it represented the beginning of true healing. But for many, the apology was meaningless, and for some people, it came too late.
We must allow everyone to accept or reject the apology. We must accept that survivors and their families have different healing journeys. We must walk alongside them, at their pace, free from judgment.
The Pope must also come here, to Canada, to apologize to all those who were not able to travel. This is where it all happened, where the harms were inflicted and the irreparable damage was done. On top of the apologies, the Pope must also agree to open the Vatican archives and provide the information that many of us and many families are missing, so that these people can start a real grieving and healing process and recover their dignity and identity.
The First Nations, Métis and Inuit have always been here. Since time immemorial, they have been the inhabitants of this country we call Canada. The reconciliation process calls for the eradication of acts based on one group’s dominance over another. That is why it is important to revoke the papal decree that gave rise to the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius.
As the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples says so well in its report:
A country cannot be built on a living lie. We know now, if the original settlers did not, that this country was not terra nullius at the time of contact and that the newcomers did not ‘discover’ it in any meaningful sense. We know also that the peoples who lived here had their own systems of law and governance, their own customs, languages and cultures. They were not untutored and ignorant; they were simply cast by the Creator in a different mould, one beyond the experience and comprehension of the new arrivals. They had a different view of the world and their place in it and a different set of norms and values to live by.
Dear colleagues, reconciliation is achieved not through lip service, but through concrete action, such as celebrating the inclusion of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit in history books and establishing a university by and for First Nations that is rooted in the values, cultures, languages and knowledge of our great peoples, and that is also open to the world. I invite senators to embrace and promote the calls to justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Together, we can do great things.
