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Park MP stonewalls papal apology motion

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A local Conservative MP was the lone voice against an NDP motion that would have called on the pope to formally apologize for residential schools.

 

NDP Charlie Angus, Timmins-James Bay MP, put forward a motion calling on the House of Commons to ask the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to invite Pope Francis to Canada in order for him to apologize to Indigenous people for the church’s role in the residential school system. The apology was also included in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, but the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a media release last month the Pope could not personally respond to the request.

Angus’ motion required unanimous support but Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan MP Garnett Genuis didn’t let that happen, standing as the lone vote keeping the motion from passing. The motion is expected to come back to the House for debate.

Genuis said his main objection was with the wording of the motion and singling out a faith community.

“It is important to know for context that all of the individual Catholic entities involved in residential schools apologized and the Pope himself, the last Pope (Benedict XVI), expressed regret in Rome in a meeting with Canadian and Indigenous leaders,” he said.

“If it is a question or not that Catholic entities apologize or not, they already have apologized. I felt asking Parliament to dictate to one particular faith community about how they pursue reconciliation is not fundamentally our job.”

Genuis said there’s no argument among the political parties about the horrible acts undertaken at residential schools, but added the government needs to work on reconciliation for the role it played, rather than singling out a faith community. He also mentioned that in 2008, the Harper government formally apologized for the government’s role in residential schools.

The local MP said he believes if people want the Catholic church to take a different approach to reconciliation, they should make such recommendations to the church itself instead of doing it through Parliament.

“I do believe there was an implication in the motion that the Catholic church was not engaged in reconciliation,” he said. “Catholic entities were apologizing for this way back 1991. You can ask, ‘what’s the harm?’ I think there’s an importance to defining the separation of roles and responsibilities between faith communities and the government. It is not for us to step over those bounds.”

The apology wasn’t the only request made in the motion. Angus also wanted the church to turn over all relevant documents relating to residential schools when requested by survivors, their families and scholars.

Garnett added the church is working on releasing those documents but there are issue around confidentiality relating to victims. He added he will be closely following the motion as it is debated.

Residential schools operated in Canada for more than a century and were administered by the church. The death toll is estimated in the thousands, but there’s no way of telling for sure since the government at the time stopped recording such statistics around 1920. 

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