Inviting Pope Francis to come to Manitoba

 

On April 28^th, I spoke in the Manitoba Legislature on an Opposition Day Motion to invite Pope Francis to come to Manitoba. My comments are below.

Opposition Day Motion:   To invite Pope Francis to come to Manitoba as part of his upcoming visit to Canada to deliver, in person … a papal apology to resi­den­tial school sur­vivors on behalf of the Catholic Church, which should include a visit to the graves of First Nations and other Indigenous children who perished in these in­sti­tu­tions and a blessing of the grave of Louis Riel in St. Boniface, all with the goal of advancing recon­ciliation for Manitobans from all walks of life.

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Madam Speaker, we have all watched the coverage of the recent delegations going to visit Pope Francis in Rome. We have watched as the delegations and their visits have raised awareness of what happened at resi­den­tial schools in Manitoba and across Canada. We have watched as Pope Francis has apologized for the harms that were done at resi­den­tial schools.

      We understand that Pope Francis is planning to come to Canada, we hear in late July. We need to welcome Pope Francis on his journey to our country. We hope that Pope Francis will visit Winnipeg and Manitoba.

      The Manitoba Liberal Party, we support this reso­lu­tion for our Speaker and our Province to invite Pope Francis formally to come to Canada to deliver in person the papal apology to resi­den­tial school sur­vivors, to visit the graves of First Nation and other Indigenous children and to give a blessing on the grave of Louis Riel with the goal of advancing recon­ciliation for all Manitobans and all Canadians.

      Recon­ciliation is a journey. We are all on that journey. We travel together, recog­nizing the harms that were done at resi­den­tial schools and in the process which involved taking children from their parents and from their families, a process which occurred as a part of the process of taking children and putting them in resi­den­tial schools.

      For me, it has been a long journey learning from Indigenous people. I remember visiting Montreal Lake in northern Saskatchewan in the 1960s and learn­ing of the lack of locally relevant teaching materials and visiting La Ronge and hearing with horror that the movies shown in the local theatre almost always provided a negative view of Indigenous people.

      In the 1960s and since, I learned of the in­cred­ible knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous people in relationship to nature, to Mother Earth, to wildlife and, most parti­cularly, knowledge with respect to bald eagles and fish, knowledge which was relevant and helpful to work that I was doing with others and, indeed, continue to do.

      In the late 1960s, helping out at a health clinic in Kahnawake near Montreal, I learned of the in­cred­ible skill of Indigenous people in the com­mu­nity in build­ing skyscrapers in New York. I also read and started learning from the story of Poundmaker and others of the terrible way that Indigenous people have been treated so often.

      In my years as a physician at the Children's Hospital and the Manitoba cancer foundation, I got to know, personally, many amazing Indigenous children and their parents. In my time in Oklahoma, I was there for two six-month periods, I learned of the Cherokee people who developed their own alphabet, actually a syllabary, and marveled at their ability to develop their writing and printing and newspapers in the first several decades of the 1800s, now close to 200 years ago.

      In my time in politics, I have learned, to my shock, of the child and family services system in Manitoba, of the far too many mistakes, errors and harms which have occurred in the pattern of be­haviour, a pattern of behaviour which has mimicked that in resi­den­tial schools taking children away from their families. The stories I have heard have been and are horrific. It was a wake-up call to me, as was visiting Brandon in about 2007 and learning of the children who went to resi­den­tial schools and who never came home.

      But I have also learned of the in­cred­ible and too often underap­pre­ciated expertise of Indigenous know­ledge keepers and leaders. We have a long way to go in this journey of recon­ciliation. It is a journey of under­standing past harms. It is a journey of also ap­pre­­cia­ting the strengths and the contributions of Indigenous people to our province, Manitoba, and our country, Canada. It's a journey of making sure that op­por­tun­ities are there for Indigenous people and for non-Indigenous people to walk and travel together in a better way, and toward a better future.

      We hope that Pope Francis will accept our invitation to visit Manitoba. We say to Pope Francis, we need you to come to help us on our journey of recon­ciliation.

      Miigwech, merci, thank you.