Good morning,
Pope Francis apologized and asked for God’s forgiveness for the Catholic Church’s role in the tragedy of residential schools.
“I ask for god’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart, I am very sorry and I joined my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon clearly,” Pope Francis told Indigenous delegates assembled at the Vatican on Friday. “The content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to faith itself.”
Residential school survivors have been asking for an apology for decades. This is the first time the Pope has issued a formal, public apology.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission urged an apology in 2015 as part of its 94 calls to action. That call, No. 58, asked the pope to issue an apology in Canada to survivors and Indigenous communities for the church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, sexual and physical abuse of children. Friday’s apology doesn’t preclude another apology in Canada; the Pope has promised to come to Canada later this year.
More than 150,000 Inuit, Métis and First Nations children were forced to attend the schools, in a federal-backed system designed to strip them of their language and culture. More than 4,000 children died, according to the TRC in what it has said amounted to cultural genocide.
Read more:
- Through gifts and customs, Indigenous delegates to Vatican shared their history and hopes
- Delegates view Indigenous artifacts at Vatican with mix of awe and anger
- Tanya Talaga: In Rome, I have seen Indigenous people bring hope and resistance to the Pope’s doorstep
This photo taken on March 31, 2022 shows Pope Francis (C) posing with newly elected Dene Nation National Chief Gerald Antoine (6th right), former national chief of Canada's Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine (5th left) and other First Nations delegation members in the Vatican.Supplied/AFP/Getty Images
Canada’s sport system must confront growing complaints of athlete abuse, Sport Minister says
Canada’s sport system is in the midst of a crisis and the problems need to be confronted, federal Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge says, after calling a high-level meeting in Ottawa to discuss the growing number of complaints from athletes about abuse and maltreatment.
“I believe that we are in the middle of a crisis, and I decided that it was time to bring everyone to the same table so that we can have an open and robust conversation about the crisis that we are in,” St-Onge said Thursday.
The minister held a meeting that day with some of Canada’s top sport officials. In an interview with The Globe’s Grant Robertson after the meeting, she outlined the steps the government wants to take. Among them, Ottawa is preparing to revisit the funding structure for all of Canada’s sports organizations, and through that she intends to discuss placing more requirements on the standards each sport will have to meet in order to receive funds.
- Globe investigation: The suspect science used to push aspiring Olympians to starve themselves
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War is forcing businesses in Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to find novel ways of staying afloat
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last month, Maxym Starushko sent his wife and children to Poland from their home in Kyiv, and then he headed to his hometown just west of the capital.
He got so fed up watching the news that he went back to Kyiv and made a bold decision to reopen the restaurant where he’d been working as a waiter, writes The Globe’s Paul Waldie. “I need a job and I don’t want to sit at home and just listen to the news and be depressed,” he said on Thursday during a short break at the Saw Fish, a seafood restaurant.
The Saw Fish is among a handful of small businesses in the capital that have dared to reopen – or keep going – since the war began.
More:
- Biden ordering largest-ever release from oil reserves to counter effects of Russia-Ukraine war
- Russia sets deadline for ruble gas payments; Germany says move amounts to ‘blackmail’
- Lawrence Martin: Putin’s media control means he’ll maintain his grip on Russia
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Former Bridging Finance executives defrauded investors, OSC alleges: David and Natasha Sharpe, the husband-and-wife executive team that ran Bridging Finance until its 2021 receivership, defrauded investors out of millions of dollars through “dishonesty and deceit,” the Ontario Securities Commission alleged Thursday in an enforcement action against the couple.
When will COVID-19 be endemic? The four factors that will shape the virus’s future: Not since the onset of the pandemic has the trajectory of the pandemic been so difficult to read. Based on what’s currently known, there are factors, including the virus’s evolution and human behaviour, that are most likely to influence our interaction with COVID-19 through the rest of 2022.
- NACI guidance on fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine expected soon
- Starting Friday, vaccinated travellers to Canada don’t need a COVID-19 test
CP Rail called out on safety issues: The Transportation Safety Board says Canadian Pacific Railway failed to heed warnings from employee reports of braking problems on a steep stretch of track in B.C. prior to a 2019 crash that killed three train crew on the same route.
What the latest climate plan means for Canada’s oil and gas sector: Ottawa’s latest plan to rein in emissions specifically aims to put pressure on the oil and gas sector to cut its emissions by 42 per cent by 2030. In the latest Decibel, The Globe’s Adam Radwanski talks about what is required from companies and from the government to meet these goals.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks dipped further from recent six-week highs on Friday on worries about the Russia-Ukraine war and recession risks, and oil fell $2 a barrel on reserve releases. European buyers of Russian gas faced a deadline to start paying in rubles on Friday, while negotiations aimed at ending the five-week war were set to resume even as Ukraine braced for further attacks in the south and east. MSCI’s global share index fell 0.17% to 710.22, against a high of 724.49 hit on Wednesday, heading for little change on the week. U.S. S&P futures rose 0.29%. The Canadian dollar was trading at 79.99 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Politicians are poisoning our own democracy
“Politics in this country have changed a lot over the last number of years. Civility can still be found when you look hard enough, but it can also feel like an endangered species. Ideological differences shouldn’t be fuelled by the demonization of those you disagree with. And yet that happens all the time, especially with this Prime Minister.” - Gary Mason
Jada Pinkett Smith deserves an apology
“Patter at the Oscars is not stand-up at a bar in the boonies and should be held to a higher standard. It should take down the powerful, not the vulnerable. When Mr. Rock ad-libbed his joke about Ms. Pinkett Smith starring in GI Jane 2 (prefaced by an “I love you” – how could she object?), he broke that rule of classy comedic fair play. His careless remark turned him into a court jester gone wrong. And just to be clear, Mr. Smith’s violent response was also wrong.” - Barbara Stowe
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Thirteen tips on how to save on your grocery bill as inflation sends food prices higher
With the cost of meat, dairy and fruit climbing – food prices rose 7.4 per cent in February – some households are being forced to find new ways to make ends meet. Even those with more disposable income are starting to feel the pinch.
Here are some tips on how to bring your grocery bill down.
MOMENT IN TIME: April 1, 1990
WrestleMania comes to Canada
Hulk Hogan in the wrestling ring in 1990.John Barrett/MediaPunch /IPX via AP
The heart wants what it wants, Emily Dickinson wrote in 1862, and for some, that may involve a dose of professional wrestling. Others may not see the poetry, or appeal, in it, but best not to think too much about what it means and instead, “pare it down to the basics and then move on.” That’s what Stephen Brunt wrote in a Globe and Mail story – flagged on the front page – about WrestleMania VI, which was WrestleMania’s Canadian debut and its first event held outside of the United States. It drew to Toronto’s SkyDome a then-record crowd of 67,678 people, who witnessed what Mr. Brunt described as “a parade of very large men in tight shorts performing an elaborate pantomime, an exhibition of acrobatics, histrionics and theatrics based in a morality unflinching enough for the Old Testament or the Koran.” Headliners included Hulk Hogan (“enormous and balding, with skin perpetually tanned the colour of a nice pair of oxfords”) and the Ultimate Warrior (“all sound and fury, neither baby-face nor heel”), who vanquished Hogan in their match. WrestleMania is one of the flagship events for WWE, a publicly traded company. WrestleMania 38 is scheduled for April 2 and 3 in Dallas. Wendy Stueck
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