OTTAWA—The Canadian government issued a stirring apology to its Aboriginal Peoples Wednesday for a historic policy that had more than 150,000 native children taken from their families and placed in schools where they were forced to abandon their traditional language and culture.
Many of the children in the so-called "residential schools" faced physical and sexual abuse or died at the schools, which were run by the government and churches.
"The treatment of children in Indian Residential Schools is a sad chapter in our history," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a special gathering of Canada's parliament Wednesday.
Mr. Harper added that the system had a "lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage, and language" and contributed to social problems that "continue today."
The residential schools were put in place when Canada was still a colony of Britain. They remained until the mid-1990s, though most were shut down in the 1970s. An estimated 80,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people living in Canada today attended the schools.
"The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long," Harper told natives who crowded the gallery at parliament, and thousands more who watched via live television feeds outside parliament and in locations across the country.
"The burden of this experience is properly ours as a government," he said.
On behalf of Canada, Harper asked the natives for forgiveness for "failing them so profoundly."
The ceremony, which saw speeches of apology from each of the four political parties represented in Canada's parliament, brought some natives in attendance to tears.
Eleven aboriginal representatives, including the leaders of Canada's largest aboriginal organizations, listened to the speeches from the parliament floor.
Five native leaders responded with speeches after the political leaders spoke.
"For our parents, our grandparents, great grandparents, for all generations that preceded us, this day amounts to nothing less than the achievement of the impossible," said Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
"For the generations that will follow us, we bear witness today that our survival as First Nations Peoples in this land is affirmed forever."
Stéphane Dion, leader of Canada's Official Opposition party, the Liberals apologized for his party's role in "creating a system to punish you for who you were."
The Liberals were in power for 70 years in the 20th Century, Dion noted.
"I acknowledge our role and our shared responsibility in this tragedy. I am deeply sorry. I apologize."