N.S. native people to weigh carefully apology for residential school abuse

Nova Scotia aboriginal people will be listening closely to a formal apology expected to be delivered this week by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to all former students who were abused at Indian residential schools.

Survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School say that how the apology is delivered could determine whether or not it allows their healing to begin. About 2,000 aboriginal children from across the Maritimes were forced to attend the residential school in central Nova Scotia near Truro.

Between 1930 and 1967, thousands of native children were taken from their families and placed in the school, where many lost their language and culture, as well as being physically and sexually abused.

Sylvia Gould, from Waycobah on Cape Breton Island, was sent to live at the school in 1954 when she was just four years old.

"There was a lot of physical abuse, sexual abuse, that I suffered at that school. I haven't told anybody that," Gould said.

She said the abuse was committed by the priests and nuns who ran the school for the federal government, and she doesn't think the long-awaited apology from the federal government will do much to help her get over it.

"Canada's not going to cry. Canada wants this over and done with. But we, as survivors, are not going to be over and done with," Gould said.

'It needs to be sincere and heartfelt'

Lottie Johnson, from Eskasoni on Cape Breton Island, attended the school in the late 1950s. She is now a board member for the Association for the Survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School.

She said survivors would have preferred the prime minister to apologize to them in person. He's scheduled to make the apology in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday.

"It needs to be sincere and heartfelt for people to be able to accept this. And some may never accept it. It won't be good enough," Johnson said.

Johnson and Gould have higher hopes for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That's because they'll get a chance to tell their side of the story to commissioners and the rest of Canada.

The commission's five-year mandate is to try to understand how aboriginal people were affected by attending residential schools. Former students will be able to share their stories of abuse and neglect in a safe and culturally appropriate environment.

Johnson said it's important for former students to tell the commission about the physical and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of the church workers who ran the school.

"But, I would like to see these stories of the Shubenacadie residential school, as well as all schools, to be recorded and archived. And I mean, not just archived where they're going to collect dust, but written into the history books," Johnson said.

"This is a part of our history that's important and to our children and their children's children. They need to be aware of this."

The late Nora Bernard, of Millbrook First Nation, who attended the school between 1945 and 1950, began locating survivors of the Shubenacadie school in 1987. She founded the Association of Survivors of the Shubenacadie Residential School in 1995, and spearheaded the class action suit to win compensation from the federal government.

Bernard was found dead in her home in December 2007. Her grandson has been charged with first-degree murder.