After weather delays, Trudeau aims to deliver tuberculosis apology to Inuit Friday - Action News
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After weather delays, Trudeau aims to deliver tuberculosis apology to Inuit Friday

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's ceremony to apologize to the Inuit for abuses suffered during tuberculosis treatment is now scheduled to happen Friday morning in in Iqaluit.

Prime minister scheduled to deliver apology at 9:30 a.m. at Iqaluit's Frobisher Inn, says PMO

A pedestrian leaves the Iqaluit Airport as a winter storm hits the city on Thursday. The weather conditions have postponed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's arrival and his official apology to Inuit for the federal government's management of tuberculosis in the Arctic from the 1940s to the 1960s. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Prime Minister JustinTrudeau's ceremony to apologize to the Inuit for abuses suffered during tuberculosis treatment is now scheduled to happen Friday at 9:30 a.m. in Iqaluit, according to the Prime Minister's Office.

Trudeauwas scheduled to apologizeThursday afternoon for the federal government's treatment of Inuit with tuberculosis in the mid-20th century. His flight was diverted toGoose Bay, N.L., and the ceremony pushed back several hours, before it was cancelled.

Snow and wind inIqaluitalso forcedtwo scheduledflightsfrom Ottawa to turn back on Thursday.The City of Iqaluitshut down all city services as the weather worsened throughout the afternoon.

Representatives from the four Inuit regions of Canada, which stretch across the Arctic to Labrador, had gatheredin Iqaluit to hear Trudeau apologize.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, Inuit were separated from their family members and taken to southern Canada for tuberculosis treatment.

Their families were often not informed of their whereabouts even after they died. Those who were treated often lived for years in sanatoriums, where the language, food and culture were unfamiliar.

"We've heard a lot about familiesthat heard that their loved one passed away, or getting a telegram of their loved one passing away, but there was no details about where their loved one was buried, if there was a funeral service," saidJeannieArreak-Kullualik, the chief operating officer forNunavutTunngavikInc.

A community feast, which was planned for Thursdayafternoon, was also cancelled. At this time, there are no plans for it to be rescheduled.

Trudeau was scheduled to apologize Thursday afternoon for the federal government's treatment of Inuit with tuberculosis in the mid-20th century. His flight was diverted to Goose Bay, N.L., and the ceremony pushed back several hours, before it was cancelled. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Arreak-Kullualik said Inuit have been gathering in Iqaluit all week.Former patients and immediate family members of people who died in southern Canada will be among the people on hand to hear the prime minister deliver the apology.

Arreak-Kullualik estimates there are between 700 and 800 people who never returned home, and whose gravesites remain unknown.

"During the apology, there will be an acknowledgement of former patients, about the mistreatment, about not keeping proper records. They will also launch the Nanilavut initiative."

The Nanilavut initiative is a database that will make records available to Inuit to facilitate finding family members' gravesites. Work on collecting the records has been ongoing for almost a decade.

Indigenous Services MinisterSeamus O'Regan and Crown-Indigenous Relations MinisterCarolyn Bennett were in the Nunavut capital Wednesday.

Bennett had dinner with the families and survivors of the tuberculosis epidemic.

Jeannie Arreak-Kullualik, chief operating officer of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the organization that represents Inuit in Nunavut, estimates between 700 and 800 people never returned home from tuberculosis treatment in the South. (David Gunn/CBC)

"In some ways, being able to have that support to find those missing pieces is very, very important to unlocking the healing," Bennett told CBC News.

Afterward, the group watched the movieThe Necessities of Life (Ce qu'il faut pour vivre)at the Astro Theatre.

The Quebec film tells the story of an Inuit hunter, played by Natar Ungalaaq, separated from his family and sent to a hospital in Quebec, where he doesn't understand the language or culture.

'Dark chapters'

Bennett said she met with the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which represents Inuit from Baffin Island, on Wednesday to work with them on how the government can address the group'srequestfora broader apology.

The association said in a report it is looking for an apology that covers the "modern-day colonial practices imposed on Inuit in the Qikiqtani region between 1950 and 1975."

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett watched The Necessities of Life, a movie about an Inuk tuberculosis patient, at the Astro Theatre in Iqaluit on Wednesday. (Sara Frizzell/CBC)

Those practices involve forcing Inuit to move to strengthen Canadian sovereignty claims in the Arctic and killing their sled dogs as a way of forcing an end to nomadic life.

Bennett was in Arviat, Nunavut, in Januaryto apologize for the forced relocation of the Ahiarmiut Inuit.

"This is about addressing the really dark chapters in Canada's history," Bennett said.

She said she is also working with the Inuit organizations on how to address the current tuberculosis epidemic, which includes discussions on Nunavut's crippling housing shortage.

Tuberculosis, an airborne disease, can be cured with treatment. But the disease is still a major concern for Inuit, who contract TB at a rate that the Public Health Agency of Canada says is more than 290 times higher than for non-Indigenous Canadians.

With files from Jackie McKay