Ontario needs to take action after apology for residential school abuse: critic

An apology from the Ontario government to Indigenous people for years of abuse in residential schools is welcome but not enough, says CBC Radio Metro Morning critic Jesse Wente.

"Sorry is great, but what do we do to actually correct and fix the things that are broken? And there's so much broken," he told Metro Morning on Tuesday.

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Wente said he thought of all of his relatives, aunts, uncles and grandmother, who went to residential schools, when he first heard the news of the apology.

But he said the apology is not the first one by a government leader in Canada for residential school abuse.

"We need the apology as an acknowledgement in order to move on. And the key is we do have to move on, but not move on in the sense of getting over it. I don't think Aboriginal Peoples are ever going to get over it because we are still living it."

Wente said action must flow from the apology for it to be meaningful. "Words are good and we need that, but we need action," he said.

"An apology is only as good as what follows up behind it. The acknowledgement is great, but it can't stop there, too many people are still hurting."

You can watch Jesse Wente's full discussion with host Matt Galloway by clicking on the video above.