Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall wrapped up their whirlwind Canadian Tour yesterday. If anyone’s counting, they spent three days in Canada, and much of that time was in the air, traveling from one place to the other. Most Canadians didn’t even know Chuck and Cam were in their country. Chuck would rather be ignored than publicly flop. The problem is that Charles did make headlines in Canada and internationally during this tour. It was because Charles refused to apologize for the century of forced separations, abuse and deaths of Indigenous children at the hands of the Anglican and Catholic churches. Charles made a big speech and he never apologized or directly acknowledged the Crown’s role. Apparently though, he was told to his face that his mother needs to apologize:
Prince Charles has been told in person that his mother should issue a formal apology on behalf of the Church of England for a scandal dating back to Britain’s colonial past. A senior chief representing Canada’s First Nations indigenous communities, told the heir to the throne that the Queen needed to act in her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald, told ITV News that she “did respectfully request that Prince Charles relay a message to his mother, the Queen, to offer an apology on behalf of the Anglican church”.
The indigenous leader met the prince at a reception in Ottawa held by the Governor General, the Queen’s representative in Canada. She handed him letters from other First Nations groups who accused the British Crown, and modern-day Canada, of gaining “great wealth” from the inheritance of the indigenous communities. Chief Archibald wants an apology for the role the Church of England played in the scandal of residential schools.
Some commenters suggested that Charles was likely advised to not apologize because an apology could be read as an admission of guilt. As in, the royal family is trying to avoid being sued or having to pay reparations or what have you. Too late! Who is advising them? Because simply ignoring the people who were historically wronged isn’t the best long-term strategy? Does Charles really believe that he can just drop into Canada for a few days, yammer about reconciliation and that will be good enough? That this will be the end of it?
Photos courtesy of Instar.
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- North America Rights Only – Yellowknife, Canada -20220519- Prince Charles And Camilla Duchess Of Cornwall attend a Platinum Jubilee Ceremony at Ceremonial Circle, in Yellowknife, during their three-day trip to Canada to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. -PICTURED: Prince Charles -PHOTO by: PA Images/INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
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- North America Rights Only – Yellowknife, Canada -20220519- Prince Charles And Camilla Duchess Of Cornwall attend a Platinum Jubilee Ceremony at Ceremonial Circle, in Yellowknife, during their three-day trip to Canada to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. -PICTURED: Prince Charles -PHOTO by: PA Images/INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
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- North America Rights Only – Yellowknife, Canada -20220519- Prince Charles And Camilla Duchess Of Cornwall attend a Platinum Jubilee Ceremony at Ceremonial Circle, in Yellowknife, during their three-day trip to Canada to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. -PICTURED: Prince Charles, Camilla Duchess Of Cornwall -PHOTO by: PA Images/INSTARimages.com Disclaimer: This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing
This terrible family thinks that minorities and First Nations just exist for a photo op. I’m glad they are getting an earful when they show up. At least Charles had the sense not to issue an incandescent tantrum of a press release on the way out the door.
It’s really striking, to me, that Charles is currently the most thoughtful member of the Salty Isle royals, by far.
Oh, England.
Was he taking notes?
And the Queen should apologize on her death bed and leave her heir to face the fall out. It’s the right thing to do. For the comedy of it all.
Let’s hope he took notes! But I doubt it. He probably thinks these communities should just be satisfied with his presence and acknowledgment of their existence.
Oh, like Chucky said, “It is a process that starts with listening. My wife and I look forward to listening to you, and learning.”
But we all know the BRF learn absolutely nothing!
More important, did he give them a photo of himself and Camilla?
That horrific strategy has worked in the United States…
IJS😡☹😢
The USA refuses to pay reparations. BUT, we at least apologized for many things (I posted yesterday that apologies don’t lead to reparations, so Charles had nothing to worry about). The US Congress apologized for slavery and Jim Crow laws, President Regan apologized for the internment of Americans with Japanese ancestry, President Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee Experiment, Congress apologized for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, etc. Again, it’s not that the royal family needs to worry about what an apology could lead to, it’s that they DON’T WANT TO apologize, and DON’T WANT TO admit to ever being wrong about anything. So indigenous people can suck it.
Edited to add: I just looked it up, the USA did pay reparations to surviving Tuskegee and Internment Camp victims.
Thank you for this, Mrs.Krabapple. I knew there were apologies, but could not remember any details, and there are a lot.
We can only do better than the generation before us, but if no one admits their ancestors were horrible, we are all stuck in place, forever circling a drain.
Wonder if refusal to apologize is linked to sudden turnaround towards HM. They go to Invictus and acknowledge UK role with forced separations, PC then agrees while simultaneously blaming his dead mother, the Queen. He’s playing for time and riding HM coattails
“ Does Charles really believe that he can just drop into Canada for a few days, yammer about reconciliation and that will be good enough?”
Yes. Yes he does think that. Because these people are completely out of touch and think people still really care about them.
@Colby: 100% this.
Agreed.
The problem is Charles and the rest of the family don’t believe they have apologise for anything. Plus I think the British Government has advised them not to apologise.
I don’t know why they are acting as if this is some new revelation that has come about? Theresa May discussed reparations years ago during her time as PM. Yet, they are all acting as if this isn’t an issue or are hoping that it will just go away. With Bozo Johnson and the rest of the Torries, this will not end well. On top of the catastrophic sh!t storm of Brexit, Bozo should sit down with TQ and Charles and implore them to acknowledge their continued atrocities on all CW countries.
Until they apologize, with sincerity, this will never go away. The protests will only become louder and angrier. Besides the fact that they are perpetrating further harm and trauma to everyone that has and is being affected.
The BRF are causing the destruction of their Monarchy all on their own.
Showing up in a few spots in Eastern and Northern Canada to meet with one or two First Nations leaders does not a reconciliation make. Period.
I still can’t quite understand what Chuck and Gladys hoped to achieve with this tour. Good riddance to them leaving. Most Canadians like myself either want some real form of reconciliation, actual change, or for the monarchy to just GTFO – we are not your lame photo op!
The more I think about this pointless tour, the madder I get. Today, that anger has reached “madder than a wet hen” level!
The arrogance to show up as a forced guest to countries where your family committed atrocities and refuse to apologize for the behavior. I promise you they still don’t think taking over other countries, murdering native peoples in the process, stripping them of their resources and setting the world dividing lines in ways that are STILL causing wars was anything other than business as usual. The ruling line of this family (and quite a few spares) are flat out sociopaths who are confused because the pretty parades are t keeping people happy the way they used too.
Wow, Liz, well said!
Yes, @ Liz Version 700, tell it like it is!!!
As a Canadian, I am confident that the strongest emotion the BRF feels about Canada is slightly warm indifference. And the feeling I get is that almost all of them would be seriously affronted by the suggestion that they should care more about, let alone APOLOGIZE for any harm done to people of colour.
So, no. I don’t think there will be an apology. And I’m really frustrated by the fact that our Constitution makes it realistically impossible to get rid of them.
I’m someone with a background in Anthropology and I volunteer a lot of time to helping Indigenous Peoples restore cultural herbal remedies that were stolen/lost. I was very optimistic this trip was going to include an apology considering his focus on First Nations. The fact it didn’t disgusts me to no end.
If you read the speech Charles gave, reconciliation means “You need to accept and be okay with what we’ve done to you.”
I also love that the Queen’s representative in Canada, the Governor General, in an Inuit Indigenous woman, and she told the heir alllllll about reconciliation.
For context, my First Nations teachers at university explained that many Nations feel that, since their treaties were made with the Crown before Canada ever existed, they are not actually in a rush to get rid of the Crown as an institution. They worry the racist bureaucracy of the horrible “Indian Act”, sans Crown, may ignore the treaties even more so than now.
So the message will be, apologize, rather than remove the monarchy, from some Indigenous people.
The thing too is that most settler Canadians have a a complete indifference to the Crown and think it’s too much work to get rid of it, so I’m not sure anything like what’s happening in the Caribbean will happen here.
I think that what Governor General did was excellent!! She delivered what she wanted to convey and what she expected in return. What a badass!!!!
I would be interested in knowing how Canadians feel about their ties to The Monarchy and whether they would want independence.
I, for one, as a passionate Canadian, would love to sever our ties to the British monarchy. And an apology is a bare minimum. Our First Nations people deserve our humble respect and a whole lot of financial reparations for the genocide perpetuated on them. I wish I could do more.
I am definitely pro-abolish the monarchy. But it’ll never happen. The amending formula for the constitution makes it nearly impossible to make a change.
Yes yes he does
The residential schools didn’t close until late 90’s. Yesterday it was noted they closed in the 60’s, but that was actually when they were at the most blatant. The Sixties Scoop was a time when authorities would take children and either place them in a school or adopt them to whites families. All over the globe. I didn’t know much about it, until I listened to Finding Cleo, a podcast by Connie Walker. She’s an amazing journalist and this podcast provides so much history and heartbreak. The Queen owes the First Nations apologies and reparations.
If you liked Finding Cleo, I highly recommend checking out a documentary, The Secret Path. It was the late Gordon Downie’s final project before died. It’s on You Tube.
Thank you guys for the recommendations!! I would love to know more about the treatises with the Indigenous Tribes and how they are being handled as each year passes. The knowledge that I have is basically what I have read for major news outlets.
Ooohhhh!! This Gordon Downies documentary looks good!!! There was also a movie of the same name with the incredible Ossie Davis!!
I just heard on CBC today that Connie Walker has a new podcast that tells the story of her family’s personal experiences with residential schools. It’s gut wrenching but it needs to be heard. She is a very talented journalist, and she has real life experience. Check her out.
Finding Cleo is a powerful and heartbreaking podcast. And Gord Downie is a national hero.
@melissa agree, and the reparations are owed not just to First Nations, also to Métis and Inuit who were forced into the residential and day schools. Métis leader Louis Riel was also instrumental in bringing Manitoba into Confederation and then all of the land that had been promised to the Métis was stolen away to the point that Metis were called the “road allowance people” as living alongside the roads was the only place where they could find land.
@Kaiser would you consider using Inidgenous peoples as the style guide for CB? Peoples better represents the incredible diversity of cultures. Also when you quote colonist media that uses lower case i for Indigenous it should have a (sic) next to it.
I’ve read that actor Eric Schweig was part of the Sixties Scoop – he and his five siblings were forcibly taken from his mother when he was a baby and he was adopted by a white couple. According to the article, his mother started drinking and died before they were able to meet. His adoptive parents were abusive and he ran away as a teenager. He ended up with a drinking problem himself, until he got counseling and met other First Nations and Inuits who taught him about the culture.
Beyond the financial obligations they fear by apologizing, they also don’t care. I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again. The Crown has been directly fucking with Natives and committing genocide since the literal 1600’s. They made unimaginable wealth off of the exploitation of indigenous people— WHICH THEY BENEFIT FROM TODAY— and now they’re too tight fisted and “well it wasn’t ME who kidnapped your kids, murdered them, and buried them in unmarked graves” to even apologize. Yet they still enjoy the material wealth and status these actions benefitted them. THAT is why they need to apologize.
Like the Catholic Church they think they’re above all of this. They don’t feel anyone is owed an apology and they mistakenly believe that they have power in the situation because they have amassed wealth. But you can’t take it with you when you die, and when they do they’ll rot just the same as everyone else.
And honestly this is just my opinion but anyone who thinks that in any way the Crown *doesn’t* owe Indigenous people an apology… we’re taking about fucking words here… you’re racist too. And lacking in education on the topic because the facts 👏🏼 are 👏🏼 there
There were no visible protests while they were here… everyone just sucked up to them as per usual. Or they had no idea they were here….
I would have protested the monarchy in general… but was it worth a day off of work? I regret that I was unable to…
Not like any of us here care about them….
That’s the thing. Most Canadians didn’t even know they were here lol ! Also, things are expensive, ain’t nobody taking a day off work for the Royals !
Most Canadians I know are worried more about the Battle of Alberta (NHL) that is happening right now than these two floofs. TWELVE goals. Insane.
What they did were atrocities and crimes against humanity on name of the crown. People should keep pressing those clowns for at least an apology, it’s the least what they should had done.
Yes she does. Actually, England as a whole needs to apologize to A LOT of people. And for f*cks sake give back all the jewels you stole from India ! Also, the Canadian governement still isn’t doing enough for Indigenous people. There are still communities with no clean drinking water !
And Egypt. And the Elgin Marbles…
The way the ITV covers this is gross too. Passive voice, euphemisms like “the scandal of rez schools”. Be clear – the murder of Indigenous children and attempted genocide by the GoC, Anglican Church and Crown.
The royal family’s advisors are really f’ing bad. Ya’ll gonna pay whether you say the words or not.
In 1876, the Indian Act “reserved” CROWN-HELD land for First Nations and took the rest for itself, creating a reservation system that to this day prohibits First Nations people from owning land. On-reserve housing policies in the decades that followed further entrenched a welfare system that ultimately keeps people poor. Because they can’t own land, they have no assets against which to secure mortgages. That means people who want to build on-reserve homes need to front 100% of their building costs—costs that can surpass normal market value due to the remoteness of many reserves. This is from a 2019 Bloomberg article:
“Currently, in southern Manitoba’s Sandy Bay First Nation—a place where winter temperatures often dip below -40 F—people are living in rat-infested homes without heat or reliable electricity. Rampant mold in northern Ontario’s Cat Lake First Nation is seriously damaging people’s health. In Attawapiskat, some people live in uninsulated sheds. Neskantaga First Nation has had a boil-water advisory for 25 years. In Nunavut, tuberculosis infection rates among Inuit are 26 times the national average due to overcrowded housing. Most people can’t afford to do better; 80% of reserves have median incomes below Canada’s poverty line.”
TO THIS DAY, Canada’s land is solely owned by Queen Elizabeth II, who is also the head of state. Only 9.7% of the total land is privately owned while the rest is Crown Land. The land is administered on behalf of the Crown by various agencies or departments of the government of Canada. Charles’ inability to admit to and apologize for the horrors of what the Crown did in Canada, and many other countries, is unacceptable and one more reason to abolish the monarchy.
Jaded, thank you for this information. It helps to understand the position of Indigenous People in current Canadian society.
RoseAnne Archibald “did respectfully request that Prince Charles relay a message to his mother, the Queen, to offer an apology on behalf of the Anglican church”. Am I understanding this correctly? She gave the Crown an out? She didn’t ask for an apology from the Queen and Royal Family or goverment. She asked for an apology from the Queen on behalf of the Anglican church. The Queen is looking like a cold hearted person without any compassion at all. She needs to apologize. Can she be that unemotional? It would take a very cold heart to recognize the tragedy and not apologize. I really think she’s getting off lightly.
Why can’t the Queen (and if necessary the UK Government) give the lands to the First Nations as reparation? Doesn’t that seem like the right thing to do AT THE VERY LEAST?
This sounds very similar to the landholding issue for Native Americans in the States. For federally recognized tribes with reservations that resulted from treaties (and some treaties are only for rights of use, not occupation), that land is actually held in trust by the US Government & is administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the agency that ‘lost’ track of $2 billion in trust funds over the course of 20 years, and spent $20 million trying to make it right (not by a long shot did they make it ‘right’). They’re sovereign nations, yes, but still tied up with the US government.
And adding insult to injury, right-wing fascists in recent years, who are trying to disenfranchise anyone & everyone who isn’t white & right-wing, has made it harder for people with no residential address to vote. Those with no residential addresses & only PO boxes tend to be Native Americans living on reservations.
Betty does need to swallow her pride and apologize. Then she needs to take out her checkbook and start writing. Don’t tell me she’s too old to handle this, because it was her choice to serve her “whole life” and not step down. So this is part of the bargain she chose to make. I am glad to see her jubbly stained with these issues. It’s about damn time for the light to shine on them.
If the pope can apologize so can the Queen.
Not one is expecting them to pay anything since the Canadian government has been dealing with that. But she is the head of state and her ancestors have been since this all started.
Nothing short of a full apology will suffice and they also need to return the many artifacts that they stole from our people that are currently collecting dust in their dusty old museums. My sister in law would have to go to London to see the ceremonial masks her great grandfather made. That’s just messed up.
That is interesting. So I’m guessing Canada doesn’t have anything like the Native American Grave Protection & Repatriation Act of 1990? Museum collections that get funding from the federal government are required to go through their collections, and anything that may be of patrimonial or ceremonial importance must be repatriated, if at all possible. It’s a long process, but it can be done. And I know recently some museum in Scotland, and I think one in England, returned some human remains to Hawaii.