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	Snubbed Native School Survivors Forgive Canada By Jorge Barrera Calgary Sun [Canada] April 19, 2007 http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2007/04/19/4067607-sun.html A major native residential school survivor group has sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth II that forgives Canada and the churches for wanting to "get rid of the Indian problem" through the residential school system. The letter was sent to the Governor General's office yesterday to be forwarded to the Queen. "In the spirit of our people and the integrity of our collective compassion, it would be prudent to offer forgiveness from the survivors of Indian residential schools to Canada, the Church entities and their descendants," says the letter, signed by Michael Cachagee, chairman of the National Residential School Survivor's Society. The society decided to send the letter after the Conservative government announced it would not issue an apology. "We can't force an apology out of them," said Cachagee, a residential school survivor. "By forgiving them we don't have to deal with them. Now it's their problem." Residential schools, run by the federal government with the United, Catholic and Anglican churches, existed for about 100 years from the late 1800s to 1986. Native children were rounded up in their communities and taken to schools scattered across the country. Many endured physical and sexual abuse. School conditions helped spread diseases such as tuberculosis. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, died; some from disease, others from brutal beatings or freezing to death while attempting to flee. "The echo of this depraved policy lingers still throughout the halls of our parliament from the time when Indian Affairs deputy superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott declared: 'I want to get rid of the Indian problem ... Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed,' " says the letter. Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has said an apology isn't needed because "the underlying objective had been to try and provide an education to aboriginal children."
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