OFFERING FORGIVENESS — Herman Yellow Old Woman leads Chuck Strahl and Kenny Blacksmith in the Buffalo Dance after honouring both men with the Capture Dance. Vincent Yellow Old Woman and Elijah Harper look on. (CCN/Gyapong)

Aboriginal leaders offer forgiveness to Harper

By Deborah Gyapong

Canadian Catholic News

OTTAWA (CCN) — A national coalition of First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders have offered forgiveness to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

They presented the prime minister with the Charter of Forgiveness and Freedom, a formal response to Harper’s historic 2008 apology in the House of Commons for Indian Residential Schools. The response took place at the National Forgiven Summit here June 11 - 13 that drew thousands of residential school survivors, their descendants and well-wishers from across the country.

“We’re going to see Canada a healed nation and today we are much more healed than before because we have been able to come to a place where we can say ‘I forgive,’ ” organizer Kenny Blacksmith told the summit June 12.

“This is the hour of healing and restoration for all our people,” said Blacksmith, who spent 11 years in a residential school, before presenting Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl with the charter.

The charter acknowledges the profound hurt Aboriginal peoples have experienced in the IRS policy that tried to “kill the Indian in the child” and separated them, often forcibly, from their families.

The charter recognized that “releasing forgiveness requires the exercise of an individual’s free will to choose to forgive,” and “that forgiveness is not political; it cannot be legislated.”

“(Forgiveness) is not economic; it cannot be bought, sold or traded,” the charter said. “Forgiveness is spiritual; it is borne of the unconditional love of our Creator.”

“Our choice to forgive breaks the generational cycle of victimization and accusation, and blesses those who seek forgiveness and those who forgive,” it said.

“This summit is about giving and receiving forgiveness — which is also difficult — and celebrating the freedom,” Strahl told the gathering, noting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) would hold its first meeting in Winnipeg June 16 - 19.

“We continue to make progress with the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA),” he said. “Everyone involved is determined to make it work.”

Strahl told journalists that he knew many IRS survivors were not ready to extend forgiveness and many needed to be able to tell the TRC the stories of how profoundly they had been hurt.

“None could stay in this portfolio and not be a changed person,” said Strahl. “From the first day the European people came to this country, no one has been able to be more generous than the Aboriginal people,” he said.

Herman Yellow Old Woman, an elder with the Siksika Nation, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, gave both Strahl and Blacksmith their peoples’ highest honour by performing the Capture Dance, a traditional ceremony that concluded with the presentation of a feather headdress and the right to do the Buffalo Dance.

“Five hundred years later, on behalf of my ancestors,” Herman Yellow Old Woman said, “Welcome to my country!”

The summit began with a response to the churches. Among the religious leaders present were Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s Don Hutchinson, and David Mainse, founder of 100 Huntley Street and the Crossroads Television System. On his blog, Prendergast called the event “a very powerful experience” and “an emotional mutual act of asking for and granting forgiveness.”

The prime minister was unable to attend the summit, but he sent a videotaped message that played on the large screens over the stage at the Civic Centre arena.

Harper called the charter a “powerful act” but said the gesture of forgiveness does not remove the obligations from “those who have done the wrong.”

He assured those gathered of his continued commitment to reconciliation. “May your generosity of spirit release healing in all of our hearts,” he said.
On June 11, Harper met privately with 24 elders who are survivors of Indian residential schools and 12 witnesses who are children of survivors.

They presented him with the charter. Among those present were high profile Native leaders such as Elijah Harper, who as a Manitoba MLA stopped the Meech Lake Accord with his dissenting vote in 1990, and former Cree Grand Chief Billy Diamond.

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN), however, did not have an official presence at the gathering and AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo stressed in a statement that the summit was independently organized.

“The charter cannot and must not be characterized as a statement on behalf of all First Nations people,” Atleo said. “While some of our people may be ready to forgive and take the next steps in their healing journey, many others are not. This must be respected.”

“Forgiveness is an individual choice and a personal decision. No one can forgive on someone else’s behalf,” he said.

Atleo marked the second anniversary of Harper’s apology, calling for the implementation of the principles in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that Canada committed to endorsing in the Throne Speech earlier this year.

“As we confront the legacy of the past we look also to the future with the understanding that reconciliation today requires significant changes in the relationship between First Nations and governments,” Atleo said. He said he also looks forward to the inaugural event of the TRC in Winnipeg.

Among the other MPs attending the summit were Rod Bruinooge, chair of the Parliamentary Aboriginal Caucus, Jeff Watson, Harold Albrecht, Russ Hiebert, Colin Mays and Carol Hughes.

SUMMIT ORGANIZER — Kenny Blacksmith, a former Deputy Grand Chief of the Cree and an evangelical pastor, organized the National Forgiven Summit. He’s shown here after he was presented with a headdress by a Siksika elder. (CCN/Gyapong)