In an interview with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network today, M.P. Romeo Saganash called for Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan to apologize to residential school survivors or resign his post.

Saganash, a contender to replace Jack Layton as leader of the NDP, is also Canada’s first Cree lawyer and the first Quebec Cree Member of Parliament.

Ironically, Minister Duncan was announcing the government’s plan to install a stained glass window on Parliament Hill in honour of residential school survivors when he told reporters that the tragedy was simply an “education policy gone wrong”.

Having spent ten years in residential school himself, Saganash said, “For those of us who survived residential schools, for those of us who had family die there, for those of us who have seen the damage it has struck at the core of our communities, our families and our culture over several generations, I demand an immediate apology from the Minister. Failing an immediate and complete retraction of his comments, I demand the Prime Minister ask for Minister Duncan’s resignation.”

Duncan’s remarks came in response to a reporter’s question as to whether the policy was cultural genocide, which the Minister was quick to deny, dismissing it as failed education policy, although at the same time admitting the policy would have been “lethal” had it continued.

“To say that denies the intent – as expressed by Duncan Campbell Scott at the time – to wipe out the Indian problem and to kill the Indian in the child. It denies the spirit of the Prime Minister’s apology of June 2009. It denies the Minister’s own logic, as he admits the policy would have been lethal had it continued and yet claims it wasn’t a form of cultural genocide”, said Saganash. “Genocide need not be successful to meet the definition”, he added.

Concluding, Saganash said, “Most importantly, the Minister’s callous disregard for the true impact of what happened denies the pain, suffering and the daily reality still lived by survivors”.