NDP calls for special prosecutor for abuses
OTTAWA • For years, Inuit have watched a priest they say abused children for decades recline in comfortable retirement in France.
Time for that to end, two New Democrat members of Parliament said Thursday.
Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and Charlie Angus, who represents Timmins-james Bay in northern Ontario, called for the federal government to reopen talks to have Oblate priest Johannes Rivoire face trial for his alleged crimes, either in Canada or his native country.
And they demanded the federal justice minister appoint a special prosecutor to ensure that everything done to Indigenous people in all the institutions to which they were taken is revealed — and perpetrators tried.
“Enough is enough,” said Qaqqaq.
“Indigenous people need truth and justice, not only about individual abusers like Rivoire but about the hellhole of all genocidal residential school systems. We need a full and independent investigation that has the power to shine a light on every facet of this national crime and has the power to bring perpetrators to justice.”
Qaqqaq and Angus called for a fully funded prosecutor, with the power to compel testimony and documents, to look into all institutions that affected Indigenous people. That would include residential schools, day schools and tuberculosis sanatoriums — where Inuit were taken in the thousands.
“We cannot trust the Justice Department to do this without an independent special prosecutor and international observers,” Qaqqaq said.
Angus said the federal government possesses a “trove” of documents that would extend the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“(The Commission) did not have a mandate to pursue justice, to go after the perpetrators,” he said. “Canadians and Indigenous communities are calling for justice.”