THUNDER BAY – Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu says she's hopeful Pope Francis's meetings with residential school survivors will help start the healing process.
Hajdu, who will be part of the Canadian government delegation travelling to Alberta on Monday, where Francis will visit the former site of the Ermineskin Residential School in Maskwacis, Alta., said it's an important step for Indigenous peoples.
“So many people struggled in institutions that were run by the Catholic Church. The Pope has, as you know, begun a process of apology for Indigenous people who have experienced that kind of assault on their personhood, on their personal, cultural and even faith-based belief,” Hajdu said, prior to leaving Sunday for Western Canada.
“I think it's a really important moment for many Indigenous people across Canada.”
The Catholic Church was at the forefront of the residential school system, which lasted from the 1870s to the early 1990s.
School-aged children from Indigenous communities across the country were ripped from their homes and forced to forget their traditional culture and language, living at church and government-run schools where many faced sexual, physical and mental abuses, the after-effects of which are still being felt today.
Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologized to Indigenous people in 2008 for its role in the mistreatment of their children for more than a century, but until 2022, the Vatican has had little to say.
A delegation of Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors recently travelled overseas to meet with the Pope, leading to Francis' decision to make an in-person apology in Canada.
Hajdu said it's a start.
“Listen, one apology doesn't heal a lifetime of trauma and inter-generational damage. But it is a significant step for people to hear that leaders of institutions that have created policy that has been oppressive, has been harmful, actually take responsibility for those decisions and acknowledge the harm that's been caused and look for ways to restore relationships,” Hajdu said.
“Many Indigenous people are still faith-based and some are Christian, so this is of extra important for those Indigenous who are of the Catholic faith and still believe in a Catholic way, but also have that burden of harm that they carry with them from their experiences as children.”
Sol Mamakwa, the NDP MPP from Kiiewetinoong, will be part of the delegation meeting with the Pope during his visit, which includes stops in Iqaluit and Quebec City.
“This visit will provide a unique opportunity for Pope Francis to listen and dialogue with Indigenous peoples on our own territories,” Mamakwa said earlier this week.
Mamakwa will carry with him a birch-bark scroll with the testimony of other survivors calling for the revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery.
