HIGH-GRADE NI-CU-PT-PD-ZN-CR-AU-V-TI DISCOVERIES IN THE "RING OF FIRE"
NI 43-101 Update (September 2012): 11.1 Mt @ 1.68% Ni, 0.87% Cu, 0.89 gpt Pt and 3.09 gpt Pd and 0.18 gpt Au (Proven & Probable Reserves) / 8.9 Mt @ 1.10% Ni, 1.14% Cu, 1.16 gpt Pt and 3.49 gpt Pd and 0.30 gpt Au (Inferred Resource)
Message: Healing and getting on with the future
a/2016/05/30/kathleen-wynne-to-reveal-ontarios-response-to-truth-and-reconciliation-commission.html
Kathleen Wynne offers indigenous people ‘a formal apology for the abuses of the past’
Premier responds to Truth and Reconciliation Commission report by apologizing for “injustices inflicted upon indigenous communities.”
By Robert BenzieQueen's Park Bureau Chief
9:32 AM, Mon., May 30, 2016
Premier Kathleen Wynne has formally apologized for the mistreatment of First Nations peoples and pledged action in a bid to right historical wrongs.
In a statement to the legislature this morning, Wynne delivered the province’s official response to last year’s 381-page report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the cultural genocide of aboriginal people.
“However we measure a person’s opportunity and security in life, a disturbing gap exists between the indigenous and non-indigenous population,” the premier said in an emotional 1,700-word statement to a packed house.
“It is the gap created by a country that abused and betrayed its indigenous peoples. It is a gap that swallows lives and extinguishes hope across generations,” she said.
“For a long time, indigenous peoples’ calls for justice could not be heard across this yawning gulf because Canada did not want to hear them. It is thanks to the resiliency of those who endured the abuses of the past that we are finally listening.”
Acknowledging Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day and many other indigenous leaders in the legislature, Wynne said she was especially humbled to welcome survivors of the horrific residential schools that existed in the province from 1832 until 1991.
“From coast-to-coast-to-coast, the residential school system set out to ‘take the Indian out of the child,’ by removing indigenous children from their homes and systematically stripping them of their languages, cultures, laws and rights. Children were physically, emotionally and sexually abused. Many died,” she said.
“Thank you for finding the strength and courage to come forward and tell your stories — and the stories of those who were lost. In opening our eyes, you have given us this chance to move forward as partners and the opportunity to say we are sorry,” said Wynne, whose three grandchildren and their native father were at the legislature.
“So before I go on, I want to show my respect for all the survivors and all the victims by offering a formal apology for the abuses of the past,” she said.
“As premier, I apologize for the policies and practices supported by past Ontario governments and for the harm they caused. I apologize for the province’s silence in the face of abuses and deaths at residential schools. And I apologize for the fact that the residential schools are only one example of systemic, intergenerational injustices inflicted upon indigenous communities throughout Canada.”
Last June, Justice Murray Sinclair’s expose of the horrors of Canada’s residential schools system made 94 calls for action – all of which Ontario has embraced.
To that end, the province is spending $250 million over the next three years on “understanding the legacy of residential schools, closing gaps and removing barriers, creating a culturally relevant and responsive justice system, support indigenous culture, and reconciling relationships with indigenous people.”
More symbolically, the premier announced the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs is being renamed the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. The rechristened department will still be led by Minister David Zimmer.
New Message
Please
login
to post a reply