PM will apologize for Newfoundland, Labrador residential school system
JOHN’S, N.L. — It was described as a “double dagger to the heart” when former residential school students from Newfoundland and Labrador were shut out of a national apology in 2008.
They’re to be included at last when the prime minister visits Labrador on Nov. 24, his office confirmed Friday.
Justin Trudeau will be in Goose Bay to offer an apology that will be crafted with input from those abused in the now defunct schools.
“The vast majority of our clients are just happy that finally they’re going to be recognized as having gone through the same trauma,” said Steven Cooper, a lawyer for several plaintiffs who sued for compensation.
It was a devastating step backward when Indigenous students from four residential schools in Labrador and one i n northern Newfoundland were excluded from then-prime minister Stephen Harper’s apology in 2008, Cooper said.
“This is going a little ways to healing that wound.”
Cooper said the event is still in the planning stages but is expected to include at least 300 people.
About 1,000 class-action members accepted a $50-million package last year from the Trudeau government to settle claims of sexual and physical abuse along with language and cultural losses.
Harper left out Newfoundland and Labrador’s former residential schools from his apology and a related compensation package. His Conservative government argued they weren’t “akin” to institutions established under the federal Indian Act and therefore didn’t qualify. The province joined Confederation in 1949.
Danny Pottle, who lived in a Labrador school dormitory in North West River, said last year an apology was more important than any cash settlement.
“I think those experiences have to be validated by Prime Minister Trudeau on behalf of everybody in Canada,” he said in an interview. “To me, that’s the most important thing, and that’s what other people have told me all along. That apology is first and foremost.”
The $50-million settlement was approved by a judge in 2016.