Analysis of Apologies from Various Organisations to the LGBT Community

In the past, there have been many instances in which an apology from the Canadian Government is not enough to make up for past wrongs. One example was the creation of compulsory residential schools for all First Nations children of Canada after 1880. The schools were created by the government in attempt to assimilate First Nations children into European-Canadian culture. At the schools, children were forced children to follow rules that meant they were to abandon their culture, families and language. If the children broke any of the rules, they were often given excessive punishments such as physical abuse or extreme labour. There were also some cases of sexual abuse that occured at the schools, however many times the assaulter did not face any repercussions and continued to work at the school. Nutrition experiments were also conducted on the children and they were purposely starved or given new vitamin supplements instead of food to test their effectiveness. The combination of inadequate food supply, overcrowding of schools and poor living conditions, caused many children to contract diseases such as pneumonia, influenza, diphtheria, whooping cough and tuberculosis.

This caused at least two deaths every month and an estimated range between 3200 to 6000 deaths in total, however these are only estimates because this information was never fully recorded. Doris Young, a survivor described the experience of attending a residential school by saying, “Those schools were a war on Aboriginal children, and they took away our identity. First of all, they gave us numbers, we had no names, we were numbers, and they cut our hair. They took away our clothes, and gave us clothes,” (Young). This is an instance in which an apology is not enough to compensate for past wrongs because it cannot bring back the many children who died as a result schools. An apology will never be able to bring those children home to their family, who were left traumatized and heartbroken. It will never give survivors back the time they lost with their family and cannot fix the of loss of identity the schools gave them. An apology can never make up for the emotional scars that have been passed on in the First Nations community with each generation because of the trauma of life at residential schools. An apology is simply not sufficient. Another example of an instance in the past is when the Dionne quintuplets were taken away from their family to “Quintland” and had their childhood put on display for all to see. Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie were born on May 28, 1934 to their parents Olivia Dionne and Elzire Dionne. They were delivered by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and were the first set of quintuplets to survive for longer then a few days. The children were taken from their home by the government and were instead put under the custody of Dr. Dafoe, when they were 4 months old.

They lived in a nursery where people could pay to watch them as they lived their life and played together. The children lived in the nursery until they were nine years old and had extremely limited contact with the outside world. Cecile Dionne once said “It wasn't human, I think, it was a circus,” (Dionne) when speaking about the nursery, which is a quotation that clearly describes the inhumane nature of all that had been done to them. This is a case in which an apology from the Canadian Government is insufficient because it can never give the Dionne children their childhood back. It can never restore the time that was lost with their family and the effect it had on their lives. It can never give the children the years of life and freedom they deserved. It can never heal the emotional wounds and mental toll being in the nursery took on the children. An apology from solely the government is also not sufficient, as there were others who were involved in the situation. An apology from others such as, Dr. Dafoe is also necessary, as he was an active part in ensuring the quintuplets were taken from their family. An apology from the government simply cannot fix all of the damage that was done and is not enough to make up for all that happened. The LGBTQ purge is another example of a traumatic event that occured in the past. The LGBTQ purge began in the 1940’s during the time of the Cold War. It occured because RCMP and a panel from National defense and External Affairs decided that those who belonged to the LGBTQ community should be viewed as threats and were more susceptible to blackmail. They began conducting background checks and interrogating all individuals whom they believed identified with the LGBTQ community. The tactics that were used to question these individuals were extremely excessive and forced people to discuss highly personal topics. If a person was determined to be apart of the LGBTQ community they were often discriminated against in many ways such as being fired from their jobs, being denied benefits, denied severance positions and often were told they would never be promoted.

Over 9000 people were discharged from the RCMP, simply for being themselves. One famous quotation said by Pierre Trudeau about the LGBTQ purge is, “The State Has No Place in the Bedrooms of the Nation”(Trudeau). In the case of the LGBTQ purge, an apology from the Canadian Government is simply not sufficient because it can never erase the years of mental anguish people had to go through in the past. An apology does not erase the many years people were told it was wrong to be themselves and that who they are is not right. It does not take away from the pain and internal struggles people had to go through because they were surrounded by a world of people who told them that who they love or how they identify makes them less than someone else. Over the years, this inhumane way of thinking has unfortunately not been completely eliminated and is still a belief of some people today. An apology can never get rid of the prejudiced mindsets that are left over from the past and cannot fix the countless issues in society that stemmed from the LGBTQ purge. It can never heal all of the emotional wounds caused by this traumatic event and can never repay for all that victimes went through. In conclusion, an apology from the Canadian Government is not enough to make up for past wrongs because of the deaths, emotional trauma and prejudiced mindsets that were caused as a result of the issues.