One Trillion Canadian Dollars In Reparations To Canada's Indigenous People

 

CANADA

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to apologize this week for going on a family vacation instead of attending the commemoration of Canada’s first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, a day aimed at commemorating the Indigenous victims and survivors of the country’s infamous former residential school system, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

Trudeau said he made “a mistake” when he chose vacation over visiting Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation on Sept. 30. The event – and his absence –was just a few days after his Liberal minority government was reelected after snap elections.

Indigenous leaders and activists swiftly criticized the prime minister’s absence as a “complete letdown,” and coming at a time when Canada is coming to grips with its historical mistreatment of its First Nations.

Earlier this year, the remains of more than 200 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves around the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Following the gruesome find, Indigenous communities across Canada have been conducting searches at other residential schools. So far, more than 1,300 possible graves have been discovered, according to the Canadian-based Global News.

The backlash against Trudeau also came shortly after a Canadian court dismissed a legal challenge by the federal government against restitution to the victims and their families, a verdict that will pave the way for billions of dollars to be paid in compensation to First Nations children removed from their families.

Almost 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to church and state boarding schools for the purpose of assimilation in the 19th century. The schools operated until the late 1990s.

In 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said that many children faced sexual and physical abuse at the schools, while also being barred from practicing their traditions or speaking their native languages. The commission said the maltreatment at those schools amounted to “cultural genocide.”