Wynne raps Ottawa over response to report,
‘There is no excuse for any government in this country not to take action’: Wynne
COLLINGWOOD, ONT.— The Harper government fell short in its response to the aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Premier Kathleen Wynne said as her provincial Liberals prepare to help their federal cousins in a fall election.
“I think it’s disappointing,” Wynne said of Ottawa’s reaction to a damning report last week that described deplorable treatment of aboriginal children in residential schools as a “cultural genocide” replete with deaths, physical and sexual abuse.
Commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair made 94 recommendations in his preliminary report, including an overhaul of relations with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minister of native affairs, Bernard Valcourt, said the federal government will support a fund to promote awareness of what happened in residential schools, boost public understanding and establish a national centre for truth and reconciliation.
The Harper government also said it has taken a number of steps to help aboriginals since the prime minister issued an apology in 2008 for their treatment over the years. Wynne pushed for more, including more federal help to provide clean drinking water on Northern Ontario reserves often plagued by boil-water orders.
“There is no excuse for any government in this country, including the federal government, not to take action to correct those relationships that have been so damaging,” Wynne told reporters after a speech to about 900 party activists gathered at a resort for their annual meeting.
She took a shot at new Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, saying he won the job with little talk of what his policies would be and joked that Ontarians will have to wait for him to “evolve.”
That was a reference to Brown supporter Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham—Kent—Essex and a creationist who blurted in the legislature this winter that Ontario should stop teaching evolution in schools.
Wynne easily passed a leadership review with 95-per-cent support a year after winning a majority government and despite police investigations into Liberal conduct in a Sudbury byelection, deleted emails on power plant cancellations and questionable business practices at the ORNGE air ambulance service.
Outside, about 400 protesters — mostly teachers — shouted in frustration with slow progress in contract talks and the government con- sidering selling a 60-per-cent stake in Hydro One.
They briefly marched on a Blue Mountain conference centre, chanting, “don’t legislate, negotiate,” a reference to a law ordering striking high school teachers in Peel, Durham and Sudbury back to work, while Wynne spoke. They were gone shortly after she finished.
The premier acknowledged that Liberal party members approached her over the weekend with concerns about the Hydro One sale.
“I’m the first to admit this is a difficult decision. So if it’s a difficult decision for me, then obviously it’s going to be an issue for many of the people in the party,” Wynne said.