Canada formally apologizes to Indians

OTTAWA, June 9 (UPI) -- The Canadian government has prepared a formal apology to Indians for the century-old removal of children from families into residential school programs.

Canadian Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said Prime Minister Stephen Harper would make the apology in the House of Commons and meet with some of the people involved in the ordeal in the late 1800s into the 1900s, the Globe and Mail reported.

Tens of thousands of Canadian Indian children were placed in Roman Catholic residential schools and forbidden to speak their native languages and scores of reports of sexual and physical abuse have emerged in recent years.

Phil Fontaine, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, was among the first Canadian Indian leaders to go public with his story of abuse at a residential school.

"Canada is now coming to terms with its dark past, a past that's been covered up and hidden from its own citizens," Fontaine told the newspaper. "For first nations, it will restore our dignity because it will say we were unjustly wronged as a people over generations simply because of who we were."