OTTAWA - Opposition MPs assailed the Indian Affairs minister in the Commons on Tuesday, calling his refusal to apologize for widespread abuse in native residential schools an insulting betrayal.
Generations of people are still suffering the effects of church-run federal schools that First Nations children were once forced to attend, said Liberal MP Gary Merasty.
"The children confined to these schools ... were taken from their families, taken from their communities,'' said the member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Northern Saskatchewan.
"And unspeakable acts were committed upon them.
"Why does the prime minister refuse to apologize for the atrocities suffered by these children?''
The former Liberal government acknowledged in 1998 that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant for much of the last century.
Many native languages have never recovered from school policies that harshly punished children for speaking them. Ongoing struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, sexual dysfunction and domestic violence are blamed in part on the social havoc wreaked by residential schools.
The former Liberal government stopped short of apologizing, but offered a statement of reconciliation that opened a floodgate of lawsuits.
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice said Monday that the $2-billion compensation package finalized by the Conservatives does not include an apology, so none is forthcoming. Moreover, he said, the now defunct system of live-in schools was meant to educate native children.
"In saying this, he denies that the primary goal was actually to destroy aboriginal people, languages and culture,'' fumed Merasty.
"It is amazing, the magnitude of the gap between compassion and doing the right thing that this government has. The minister knows that an apology was to follow the completion of the residential schools agreement.''
The Liberals initially offered a compensation package in November 2005 that did not include an apology. Former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan said in a related letter that "there is a need for an apology that will provide a broader recognition of the Indian residential schools legacy and its effect upon First Nation communities.''
Prentice says the Liberals never followed up on that point. In fact, they never had the chance.
They were defeated soon after introducing the agreement that was later finalized after months of additional tweaking by the new Conservative government. No apology was in the final version, negotiated with the participation of the Assembly of First Nations -- which has always called for one.
Many survivors say that hearing Prime Minister Stephen Harper say he's sorry for what happened to them is worth more than the average compensation of $24,000 they'll each collect if the deal is accepted.
NDP aboriginal affairs critic Jean Crowder accused the Conservatives of shunting aside aboriginals, a political non-entity when it comes to Tory voter support.
"There is no action to close the poverty gap for First Nations, the clawback of money to promote and protect Indigenous languages, no movement on self-government negotiations and now the Conservatives refuse to recognize the wrong-headed, damaging policies of past governments.''
Prentice blasted back with his oft-used reference to a Liberal "legacy of 13 years of broken promises'' that he says did little to help aboriginal people.
"It is this government that has signed an agreement'' to compensate former residential school students, he said.
"An apology did not form part of the contractual provisions at that time.''
Prentice has denied that the government was legally advised to withhold such a gesture for liability reasons.
Chiefs from Atlantic Canada called Monday for an official apology -- noting that the Conservatives have said they're sorry for the Chinese head tax, among other past wrongs.
