‘This is our moment’: Phil Fontaine on significance, expectations for Pope’s visit to Canada
Warning: This story offers with disturbing subject material that will upset and set off some readers. Discretion is suggested.
Phil Fontaine took no talking notes to the lectern at a College Canada West convocation ceremony in Vancouver earlier this month.
Wearing a robe of blue and black, Fontaine — a pure storyteller, in response to his spouse — started his speech with a nod to the Coast Salish drummer and elder who led the ceremony with music and prayer.
“That is an innovation at such gatherings,” the previous nationwide chief of the Meeting of First Nations instructed an viewers of greater than 400 graduates.
“It’s essential to acknowledge this innovation as a result of it speaks to the transformation that’s happening in our nation.”
Phil Fontaine and Kathleen Mahoney stand in entrance of St. Peter’s Basilica within the Vatican on March 29, 2022.
Elizabeth McSheffrey/World Information
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Over their distinguished careers and lifelong advocacy for human rights, each Fontaine and his associate, Kathleen Mahoney, have had front-row seats to Canada’s “transformation” in fact and reconciliation.
They had been main architects of the landmark Indian Residential Faculties Settlement Settlement in 2006, which included a multi-billion-dollar package deal with compensation and assist for survivors, and of the Reality and Reconciliation Fee, whose findings have impacted coverage in any respect ranges of presidency.
In March and April, Fontaine and Mahoney made their second journey to the Vatican to share the gut-wrenching fact of residential faculties, and name for a papal apology for his or her intergenerational harms.
The couple is now days away from a 3rd encounter with the chief of the Catholic Church.
On Sunday, Pope Francis arrives in Canada for an unprecedented reconciliation tour spanning Edmonton, Quebec Metropolis and Iqaluit. He’s anticipated to apologize for the lasting trauma and lack of life attributable to residential faculties, constructing on his sudden atonement earlier than First Nations, Inuit and Métis representatives on the Vatican within the spring.
It’s positive to be one other “watershed” second in Canada’s transformation, delivered on Indigenous land as known as for by survivors by way of the Reality and Reconciliation Fee, mentioned Fontaine.
“Will probably be an actual mistake of monumental proportions if we had been to suppose that the apology was the top of the story and never the start,” the previous chief of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba instructed World Information.
“That is our second and we’ve got to take full benefit of it.”
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From therapeutic to disappointment, right here’s what a papal apology may imply for residential faculty survivors
Canada’s church- and state-sponsored residential faculty system locked away greater than 150,000 Indigenous youngsters, ripping them from their households in an effort to destroy Indigenous identities. 1000’s died from abuse, illness and malnutrition, and numerous extra had been subjected to sickening violence by the hands of clergymen and nuns.
Since final spring, ground-penetrating radar has detected greater than a thousand suspected unmarked burial websites at former residential faculty grounds throughout the nation — a haunting dose of actuality that First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegates shared with the pontiff in Rome this yr.
Phil Fontaine seems in an old-fashioned photograph. He survived each Fort Alexander Indian Residential College and Assiniboia Indian Residential College in Manitoba.
Courtesy: Fred Cattroll
In his first apology, the Holy Father requested God’s forgiveness for “the deplorable conduct” of some clergy members, however not the church’s institutional position in orchestrating and perpetuating the harrowing system of assimilation.
Fontaine, a survivor of Manitoba’s Fort Alexander and Assiniboia residential faculties, mentioned he’s hopeful the Pope’s second apology “will embrace extra.”
“To realize success at each step of the journey that we’re going to be on goes to require the assist of the Catholic Church, the federal government and extra notably, our group. In any other case, we’ll falter and we are able to’t afford to fail.”
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One thing is totally different about this journey to the Vatican. Phil Fontaine says it’s ‘hope’
Within the coming days, Pope Francis will meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, and residential faculty survivors from throughout Canada. A papal state go to usually takes greater than a yr to plan, however this one was organized in about 4 months, with the Canadian Convention of Catholic Bishops taking up a lot of the heavy lifting.
The group organized the Indigenous delegation to the Vatican. It has dedicated to a renewed imaginative and prescient of “strolling collectively” with Indigenous Peoples, and a minimum of $30 million to assist therapeutic packages and initiatives for survivors, communities and households.
It has additionally supported requires the Catholic Church handy over all residential faculty paperwork in its possession, and voiced assist for the prosecution of clergy members who engaged in prison abuse.
As Pope Francis touches down in Edmonton on Sunday, nevertheless, neither he — nor the Canadian bishops — have addressed calls to rescind centuries-old papal decrees that enshrine the Doctrine of Discovery and idea of “terra nullius.” These authorized frameworks gave early Christian explorers permission to overcome, displace and enslave non-Christian Indigenous Peoples.
The Pope’s tour of sacred websites, church buildings, and former residential faculty grounds has not been with out controversy. Some survivors have mentioned the Holy Father’s phrases won’t deliver them therapeutic.
The Meeting of First Nations, in the meantime, has criticized the bishops’ convention for its “unilateral” planning course of, which can have “revictimized” the very survivors with whom it goals to construct new relationships.
In a July 21 assertion, Nationwide Chief RoseAnne Archibald and Northwest Territories Regional Chief Gerald Antoine mentioned it’s “obvious” that the papal tour and apology have “advanced to be extra for the good thing about Canadian Catholic parishioners and the worldwide Christian group” than for reparations and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
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In Rome again in April, Fontaine instructed World Information in an interview that he doesn’t anticipate perfection from the Catholic Church, however is assured Indigenous Peoples will emerge stronger, however.
Mahoney, a famend home and worldwide human rights lawyer, mentioned there’s been a “sea change” in reconciliation throughout her lifetime and, for probably the most half, Canadians at the moment are on board.
“They’ve determined, it appears to me largely, that they need to be the Canadians they at all times thought they had been, which is those that respect human rights, respect dignity, respect others as equal,” mentioned the College of Calgary professor, wearing the identical black and blue robe as her husband.
“Reconciliation is happening all through society each in the private and non-private sector. This can be a direct end result, for my part, of the courageous folks — Phil, after all, main them — telling the reality.”
Mahoney acquired her first honourary doctorate on the College Canada West ceremony. Fontaine acquired his nineteenth — one other image of transformation, he mentioned.
“We’re lastly being acknowledged for our contributions, whether or not we’re speaking about sports activities, politics or training … this award shouldn’t be one thing that’s about one individual. It’s about a whole group.”
Fontaine is a person who seldom makes use of the phrase “I” as an alternative of “we.” Requested how he’s getting ready for the onslaught of feelings that may include the papal go to, he mentioned it’s “all about our group.”
“It’s a must to take the second that’s offered to you, place your self and say what must be mentioned in a means that displays the pursuits of the group you’re from.”
Pope Francis will likely be in Edmonton from July 24 to 26, Quebec Metropolis from July 27 to twenty-eight, and Iqaluit on July 29 earlier than his return to Rome.
The Indian Residential Faculties Disaster Line (1-800-721-0066) is out there 24 hours a day for anybody experiencing ache or misery on account of their residential faculty expertise.
The Hope for Wellness Assist Line gives culturally competent counselling and disaster intervention to all Indigenous Peoples experiencing trauma, misery, sturdy feelings and painful reminiscences. The road could be reached anytime toll-free at 1-855-242-3310.
