Trudeau to face forgotten residential school survivors

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The long road to sorry

First they were abused, then they were forgotten.

But tomorrow, the survivors of Newfoundland and Labrador's five residential schools will finally be recognized.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to take the stage at the Lawrence O'Brien Arts Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and bring a long journey to an end. He'll offer a formal apology on behalf of all Canadians for what happened to Indigenous children in the church-and-government-run education system.

His predecessor, Stephen Harper, stood in the House of Commons and said sorry to more than 100,000 survivors across the rest of the country in June 2008, part of a multibillion-dollar legal settlement. But Canada's newest province was pointedly excluded.

Ottawa's position at the time was that the five schools existed before Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation in 1949, and therefore the federal government had no "duty of care."

The argument didn't stand up morally, or in court. After survivors in the province brought a class action lawsuit to trial, a $50-million settlement was reached in the spring of 2016.

Toby Obed, an Inuit man from Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, was the first to testify in that suit. He shared a harrowing tale of loneliness, physical and sexual abuse.

His life went off the rails following his time at the North West River school in the late 1970s.

In 1993, at the age of 20, he almost died after spending a night passed out in a Goose Bay snowbank in -50 C temperatures. He lost his left hand and both feet, but the doctors still called him a "miracle man" for surviving the ordeal.

Today, Obed has mixed emotions about the long wait for an apology.

• FEATURE: When sorry isn't enough - the story of residential school survivor Toby Obed

"You talk about healing, you talk about growth, you talk about understanding. It's nothing small, nothing small when it comes to residential schools and how some people were treated," he tells the CBC's David Cochrane.

"How some people have grown up and the people that they have become — I've got friends who are still so mad and angry that it's their everyday, it's their everyday, they are just plain mad. You know? It's not because they want to, or because it's what they want, it's just because it's how they were brought up."

The Prime Minister's words surely won't fix all that. But saying sorry is a good place to start.

Royal rumours

It doesn't take much to get the British press excited about the Royal Family. But in recent days, the tabloids and gossip magazines have gone to DEFCON 1 as they speculate about a possible wedding engagement for Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle.

"IMMINENT" was the all-caps word being thrown around in the Daily Mirror's headline today - a conclusion tied to news that U.K. betting house Ladbrokes has stopped taking new wagers on a possible wedding date.

ITV News is airing an "investigative piece" this evening, entitled Harry and Meghan: A Royal Revolution?

US Weekly has reported that the pair will wed in the summer. Hello Magazine has the "scoop" that Markle's two dogs won't immediately be joining her in the U.K.

​Perhaps the uptick in gossip has been sparked by royal wedding nostalgia. The Queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th anniversary earlier this week.

​But take it all with a grain of salt: The only comment Buckingham Palace has is that it has no comment.

Wine is not fine; liquor sicker

Public Health officials in the Yukon unveiled harsh new warning labels for alcohol yesterday.

The stickers — which will be affixed to each and every bottle and can sold in Whitehorse liquor stores over the next eight months — are hard to miss. They cover about a third of the container, and are done in lurid red and yellow.

One bears the message "alcohol can cause cancer" in heavy black type — the first such packaging warning in the world.

The other has pictograms of a woman and a man with the maximum recommended number of standard drinks per day — two and three respectively.

The pilot project is part of an ongoing Health Canada study into the effects of drinking in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, where evidence suggests consumption is higher than in the rest of the country.

Alcohol warnings are a hot topic at the moment, with debates in Australia and India about the type of dangers that should be stressed on bottles and cans, and how you get people to actually pay attention.

There is no standard formula, at home or abroad.

Back in 2000, Parliamentarians in Ottawa voted overwhelmingly in favour of a warning label about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy, but the actual implementation was left up to individual provinces and territories.

And foreign warnings vary considerably:

• In South Korea the stickers are blunt:  "Warning, excessive consumption of alcohol may cause liver cirrhosis or liver cancer and is especially detrimental to the mental and physical health of minors."
• Thailand takes an understated approach: "Warning, drinking liquor reduces driving ability."
• Zimbabwe is almost too polite: "Alcohol may be hazardous to health if consumed to excess."

The scientific community, meanwhile, remains unconvinced that they actually work.

"Existing evidence show that alcohol health warning labels can increase awareness and convey messages about risks for pregnant women, but have not led to reductions in risky drinking during pregnancy," says this overview of the research prepared by Public Health Ontario.

And this recent study of British university students suggests that people read the warnings, but don't feel that they apply to their behaviour.

"Students found alcohol warning labels to be believable and of personal relevance. Over half stated they would read an alcohol warning label. Warning labels were applicable regardless of gender or consumption level. However, warnings failed to change attitudes and as a result may have limited practical relevance."

Perhaps things will be different in Whitehorse.

Quote of the moment

"I told my daughter we'll wait until she gets home before we start giving her sh*t."

• Marcel Poitras, after searchers found his wife Annette. She's a professional dog walker who had been missing in the bush near Coquitlam, B.C., for three days. Chloe the collie, Bubba the puggle and Roxy the boxer are safe too.

What The National is reading

• Mugabe granted immunity as part of his resignation deal. (CBC)
• Explosion was recorded where Argentina Submarine went missing. (NY Times)
• A wounded North Korean soldier's dramatic escape, and the doctor who is trying to save him. (Washington Post)
• Another hotel dumping the Trump brand. (Fortune)
• Tesla set to test the world's largest storage battery at Australian wind farm. (Guardian)
• Deep fat fryers may help form cooling clouds. Which might explain British weather. (BBC)

Today in history

Nov. 23, 1982: Video games make millions, 25 cents at a time.

The Fifth Estate and Hana Gartner delve deep into "the seductive world" of Ms. Pac-Man and Q*bert.

Making millions, 25 cents at a time

42 years ago

Duration 14:22

The addictive and empowering videogame industry is fast becoming a moneymaking juggernaut.