APTN News
On Friday, November 24, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador to apologize to some of the people that were sent to the territory’s residential schools.
“For every Innu, Inuit, and NunatuKavut child in Newfoundland and Labrador who suffered discrimination, mistreatment, abuse, and neglect in residential schools – we are sorry,” Trudeau said.
But not everyone is accepting the prime minister’s apology.
The Innu Nation says it cannot accept any apology for removing children from their homes to go to residential schools unless something is done about the number of Innu children in the province’s care.
Watch Justin Brake’s story here:
Labrador residential school survivors fought for decades to be recognized.
Then word came from Ottawa that former prime minister Stephen Harper was going to issue an apology – again they were crushed when the 2008 apology left them out.
Canada stated that the five residential schools operated under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland and Labrador before the province entered into the Confederation in 1949.
Survivors launched a $50-million class action suit against Canada for the harms done at the schools.
The Harper government fought it in court.
Shortly after the Liberals won the 2015 election, they agreed to settle.
Watch Cullen Crozier’s story on the survivors who were left out of the deal.
Tensions are high in Labrador at the moment between Inuit and Innu peoples and the federal and provincial governments.
It stems from a multi-billion dollar project call Muskrat Falls.
Announced in 2012, its budget has ballooned from $6-billion to $12.7.
What has people really upset is the fact that toxin levels stemming from flooding of the dam’s reservoir are going to be much higher than expected.
Watch Trina Roaches’s story; In the Shadow of the Dam.