As Alberta is welcoming the pope this week, one residential school survivor on the official Indigenous language translation team for the visit, says an apology is not enough.
“This apology doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a word. We need some kind of retribution,” says Henry Pitawanakwat, an archaeologist and translator from the Three Fires Confederacy. “Our language was almost lost, almost to extinction to these residential schools and we are having a tough time trying to revitalize our language and culture. We don’t have the funding, we don’t have the money to do it.”
He says he would like to see money to back up an apology, which could be used to create immersion schools were Indigenous children could learn their language and culture.
“These youngsters, they don’t know what their identity, they don’t know who they are, they hear the name Indian, they hear the word Aborigninal, Indigenous — or whatever you want to call it — they don’t know who they are,” he says. “They have nothing to recognize themself with, language is gone and we need to bring this back and we need to start from the children when they are born.”
Pitawanakwat says Indigenous people did not traditionally care about money, but now it is the only way to get anything done. “To them (governments), it’s nothing — to us it’s a way to restore our language and revitalize our culture. For them, money is nothing, they see it everyday and they earn it everyday — for my people, we don’t have that.”
Because of his job, Pitawanakwat says he wants to reserve most judgment until after the visit, but he is not hopeful any action will come from the apology. “It’s just a word unless you take action on it and you know this trip, just coming here is not action.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenny says in a statement that the legacy of residential schools requires both expressions of remorse and concrete action.
“The visit of Pope Francis is both, and the Province of Alberta is proud to host it,” the premier says. “May it be an occasion of both truth and reconciliation, to which the government and people of Alberta are committed.”