Past Violations In Canada

Words: 1531
Pages: 7

The government under certain circumstances does have a legal and/or moral obligation to redress or apologize for past violations of former governments. By redressing past violations, it does bring society together on a certain viewpoint of a topic. Also, the current government is not responsible for the action s and decisions of past governments. Although an apology and compensation can help some victims of past violations, it may not be enough in some cases. Finally, the government is however, responsible to apologize when it is wrong or has done wrong to Canadian society. By redressing past incidents in the history of a country, it brings the society of that country together. When Stephen Harper addressed the Canadian government’s role …show more content…
The internment occurred just days after the Pearl Harbor attack. Japanese Canadian railway workers were fired, Japanese fishermen in B.C. were demanded to stay in port, and over 1,000 boats were seized by the Canadian Navy. All due to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. Not only did the Prime Minister apologize for the relocation, he also gave a package of $21,000 to each surviving internee, as well as a new Canadian citizenship to anyone who was deported. It also awarded $12 million to the National Association of Japanese Canadians to promote human rights, and $24 million to the Canadian Race Relations Foundations to push for the elimination of …show more content…
Residential schools occurred throughout Canada from the 1800’s till the early 1990’s. The way residential schools worked was the federal government was incharge of natives, but the provincial government oversaw schooling. The point of residential schools was to educate natives to the standards of society so they would be an active and contributing members of modern day society. The federal government supplied the money which went from charitable funds and religious groups, the federal government also hired the workers for the schools. But there was no insight as to who was hired and what happened during the time at the schools. When the government received the complaints, all the complaints were staggered and abuses were unknown. After the investigation, there was multiple incidents that were revealed that had already been reported, but nothing was ever done. Although the Charter of Rights and Freedom was written in 1982 and the Human Rights Act was made in 1977, residential schools still occurred into the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in some cases. When Stephen Harper became aware of the horrible crimes and violations that were committed, he addressed them right away. Harper issued a formal apology to natives in June 2008 and granted them a $4 billion compensation healing package. The government is not responsible for acts committed before their time but in the case of residential schools, Harper was right