Trudeau plans apology to Inuit. Why can’t he do the same for Wilson-Raybould? Talaga,
At first glance, there seems little to compare between the bullying of former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould by the prime minister and his staff and the treatment of Inuit by the Crown during the tuberculosis crisis.
But both speak to a persistent colonial mindset, the kind of thinking that is a blight on our history and still pervades our government. On Thursday, Trudeau was to apologize to Inuit. He ought to do the same for Wilson-Raybould.
The prime minister’s planned apology — poor weather forced it to be rescheduled for Friday — was to come on a day that is mired in dark symbolism for Inuit who, for decades since their forced relocation off the land in the 1950s, have received second-class health care from the Crown. This, as tuberculosis infection rates skyrocketed and countless Inuit died, often in faraway hospitals.
Thursday should have been a day of national remembrance of all those who were lost and a reminder of the continued fight among Inuit, First Nations and Métis people for equity in health care and beyond. The most recent figures, from 2016, show TB rates are 300 times more for Inuit than other Canadians.
Early Thursday, as Trudeau spoke to his interactions with Wilson-Raybould in a scandal that has seen two of his top ministers and his top aide resign, the prime minister pointed to “an erosion of trust” between his office and his former AG and a “difference in perspective.” Yet how the SNC-Lavalin scandal has been handled is a perfect example of how the Crown has always dealt with Indigenous issues. There has always been a vast gulf between two different perspectives and a short supply of trust.
Why, for instance, did it take so long for Ottawa to apologize to Inuit, who started campaigning for the federal government to acknowledge the injustice when Stephen Harper was still prime minister? He refused. But Inuit Elders would not give up, says Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents 60,000 Inuit.
Obed did not watch Trudeau’s address to the nation on Thursday. Instead, he was in Iqaluit, getting ready to mark a day full of ceremony and meaning.
“There are families still searching for parents, children and aunts and uncles who went south for medical care. Now they don’t know where they are buried,” he said.
One in three Inuit had, at some point, been taken south to a sanatorium. The average stay in the hospitals was about 2.5 years. Sanatoriums were being built in places like Hamilton, where many Inuit were forced to stay without their families. Many never returned home. They were buried in unmarked graves.
“The care provided was not in our language. Parents and children were separated in the process of care. If Inuit died in the south, very seldom were families notified,” Obed said.
They weren’t notified even though the federal government maintained a database of Inuit receiving health services. They were identified by numbers on tags, not unlike dog tags, which they had to wear in order to receive those services.
The legacy of mistrust began as Inuit were relocated off the land, away from their traditional way of life, and into the cities, where a substandard health system allowed TB to spread uncontrolled and untreated.
Obed says he appreciates that the prime minister plans to show up to say sorry.
“An apology … starts to push back against the devaluing of Inuit lives,” he said.
“This is a response to human rights violations and there has to be a consideration of those violations as we move forward.”
This is but one step on the long road to reconciliation, he added.
“I hope they see the apology as sincere and part of a larger healing journey many are on.”
The SNC-Lavalin affair does not approach the moral gravity of Ottawa’s failure on Inuit health. But Trudeau’s treatment of Wilson-Raybould, his apparent trampling of the jurisdiction of Canada’s first Indigenous attorney general, comes from a related place. He should save a future prime minister the trouble of saying sorry.