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	Native, Church Leaders Want Canada to Tune in for Harper's Apology Wednesday Cape Breton Post June 9, 2008 http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=142120&sc=511 TORONTO (CP) — Native and church leaders are urging people across the country to stop in their tracks on Wednesday to hear Prime Minister Stephen Harper's formal apology for Canada's Indian residential schools policy. Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl tells the Globe and Mail that if the opposition parties agree, the House of Commons will set aside all other business for the event, which will start at 3 p.m. One-hundred and four-year-old Marguerite Wabano is one of six residential school survivors who'll be seated on the floor of the House of Commons when Harper apologizes on behalf of all Canadians. They'll represent tens of thousands of indigenous people taken to church-run boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their languages. Many of them were sexually and physically abused. Wabano, of Moosonee, Ont., is believed to be the oldest survivor of Canada's residential school system, which she first attended at the age of seven in a Roman Catholic institution in nearby Fort Albany. The archives of the time reveal a clear federal policy to encourage the children to abandon their native language and tradition.
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