Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 30, 2022
Pope Francis says Canada trip showed he may need to retire
July 26, 2022
Pope Francis has said that he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments, saying his week-long Canadian pilgrimage was “a bit of a test” that showed he needed to slow down and one day possibly retire.
Speaking to reporters while traveling home from northern Nunavut, Francis, 85, stressed that he had not thought about resigning but said “the door is open” and there was nothing wrong with a pope stepping down.
“It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope,” he said.
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 26, 2022
Pope Francis apologizes for forced assimilation of Indigenous children at residential schools
The first day of Pope Francis’s “penitential pilgrimage” began with a heartfelt apology delivered at the site of one of Canada’s largest residential schools and ended eight hours later with blessings and songs at an intimate service in the only designated Indigenous church in Canada.
June 1, 2021
In a morning event in a First Nation community in central Alberta, Pope Francis apologized for members of the Catholic Church who co-operated with Canada’s “devastating” policy of Indigenous residential schools.
He said the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed their families and marginalized generations in ways still being felt today.
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis told thousands of Indigenous people, including many survivors, who converged on Maskwacis, Alta., about 100 kilometres south of Edmonton.
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 5, 2022
The Vatican holds billions in assets. Residential school survivors say the Pope should step up on compensation
March 29, 2022
As a Canadian delegation prepares for its final meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican Friday, a growing chorus in Canada is hoping Francis commits to immediately remedying the Roman Catholic Church’s broken compensation promises to residential school survivors.
Canadian bishops announced a renewed fundraising effort last fall — $30 million over five years — and say work is well underway.
But critics are skeptical. Even if that money can be raised, they say it’s wrong to make the dwindling number of elderly survivors wait that long. They say that if Canadian bishops won’t do it immediately, the Vatican should.
Although all the full specifics of the Vatican’s holdings are unknown, a tabulation of known assets puts them in the tens or possibly hundreds of billions of dollars.
September 5, 2018
Survivors say the compensation money isn’t for them — it’s to fund addictions and mental health supports, job training, recreation, language preservation and other programs for their descendants suffering through intergenerational trauma.
“It affected my children, my grandchildren. So many are lost,” said survivor and mental health worker Audrey Eyahpaise of the Beardy’s & Okemasis Cree Nation.
The survivors say the Vatican is just as responsible as the local religious orders and dioceses.
October 18, 2018
“This has been a struggle for many years. They’ve been patient. They keep hearing broken promises,” said University of Saskatchewan Indigenous studies professor and Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation member Bonita Beatty.
“It’s a hierarchy. They report up to the Vatican. So yes, he [Pope Francis] is responsible for the various arms of his government. He can’t just wash his hands of it.”
Francis’s supporters say he has moved the church toward greater transparency, but a definitive dollar figure of the Roman Catholic Church’s wealth remains unavailable.
CBC News collected publicly available information to obtain a partial list of the church’s assets. They include:the Vatican, Vatican Bank, art and architecture, investments, and land. (CBC)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 8, 2021
‘No more crocodile tears’: Residential school survivor demands action from feds
A residential school survivor says she is sick of talk, and is demanding action from the federal government on reconciliation between Canada and residential school survivors.
June 3, 2015
“Canada, no more talk! No more promises. No more crocodile tears. It’s time to take action,” said Evelyn Korkmaz, speaking at an NDP press conference Thursday.
Korkmaz said that survivors like herself have known that children’s remains were buried across Canada even before 215 bodies were found last week at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.
The federal government should fund the investigation of the 139 residential school sites across Canada, Korkmaz said, calling them “crime scenes.” She’s also urging Ottawa to identify the missing children and notify their families, complete the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, honour the residential school settlement agreement and stop fighting settlement cases in court.
Korkmaz was speaking at a press conference on a motion put forward by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh that calls on Ottawa to drop a pair of Federal Court appeals he says represent a “belligerent” approach to justice for Indigenous children.
June 2, 2021
Singh says symbolic gestures are not sufficient and that the moment demands action, accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of hypocrisy in sympathizing with Indigenous communities while fighting them in the courts.
The Liberal government is appealing a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling ordering Ottawa to pay $40,000 each to some 50,000 First Nations children separated from their families by a chronically underfunded child welfare system.
It is also fighting a tribunal decision that widened the applicability of Jordan’s Principle, a rule stating that when governments disagree about who’s responsible for providing services to First Nations children, they must help a child in need first and argue over the bills later.
Trudeau said earlier this week that “an awful lot” of work remains before reconciliation can be achieved, stating that residential school survivors need more support amid profound intergenerational trauma.
Singh is also asking the government for faster implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action, trauma resources for survivors and a progress report to be tabled in 10 days.
June 3, 2021
Korkmaz would also like to see the Catholic Church account for its role in residential schools.
“The Catholic Church also needs to acknowledge and take ownership to repent and pay for their sins,” she said.
Last week, the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) called on Pope Francis to address the atrocities that happened at residential schools, days after the remains of 215 children were found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
The Catholic Church was responsible for operating up to 60 per cent of residential schools in Canada and is the only church involved in residential schools that hasn’t made a formal apology.
Korkmaz said that it’s past time for Canada to take concrete steps toward reconciliation.
“The time has come to act. No more talk. We’re tired of talk. We need action and we need action now. Today.” (Global News)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 18, 2019
Does Justin Trudeau apologise too much?
(Article from March 2018) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far issued four formal apologies for historic injustice since his government’s election in 2015, beating all his predecessors in government mea culpas. Why is Trudeau Canada’s most apologetic leader?
Pez Prime Minister
Just over six months after his election, Justin Trudeau stood in Canada’s Parliament to say sorry.
His apology was made before descendents of passengers of the Komagata Maru, who were present for the statement.
The Japanese vessel was carrying 376 Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu passengers who were denied entry into Canada in 1914 under immigration laws at the time.
Trudeau called the incident “a stain on Canada’s past”.
It was the first in a series of formal apologies made by Trudeau’s Liberal government to acknowledge historic injustices in the country’s past.
His government is expected to issue at least one more mea culpa, having hinted at recognition of a 1939 incident where Canada turned away Jews seeking asylum from Nazi persecution.
Acting on a recommendation from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, last year Trudeau also asked Pope Francis to apologise for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system, where indigenous children were abused for decades.
February 25, 2010
His government is expected to issue at least one more mea culpa, having hinted at recognition of a 1939 incident where Canada turned away Jews seeking asylum from Nazi persecution.
Acting on a recommendation from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, last year Trudeau also asked Pope Francis to apologise for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system, where indigenous children were abused for decades.
The elder Trudeau rejected the idea that a government’s purpose could be to right the past.
“It is our purpose to be just in our time,” he told the House of Commons.
Historian Jordan Stanger-Ross of the University of Victoria says there can be “a fair amount of skepticism” around formal political apologies.
Be it an attempt to close the book on the past wrongs or the political considerations of key constituencies, “government always has clearly mixed motives in apologising,” he says.
The events Trudeau has chosen to apologise for fall squarely in line with the Liberal government’s contemporary policies.
The party campaigned on the idea that “diversity is a source of strength” – a stance he referenced in his Komagata Maru speech. (BBC)
I know many people, like your cartoonist, like to make fun of our prime minister’s numerous apologies. But the most recent one, which your cartoonist scoffed at, was to Italian-Canadians who were interred during Second World War. This particular apology is no laughing matter and long overdue.
Your cartoonist insulted the memory of my Italian ancestors. And for good measure he made fun of Trudeau’s speech defect. Is that what you call a good day’s work?
Deanna Campagnolo, Burlington
Trudeau’s empty apologies
RE: Justin Trudeau
Isn’t it just lovely that Justin Trudeau can say sorry for anything and everything that he had no hand in or wasn’t alive for but he can’t do the same for his own foibles. That tells more about the man than anything else he has to say.
