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Motion denied seeking apology to Acadians

Tuesday, November 27, 2001
From the Ottawa SUN
Motion denied seeking apology to Acadians
By LISA SCHMIDT-- Canadian Press

OTTAWA (CP) -- Liberals voted down a motion Tuesday by a Bloc Quebecois MP with Acadian roots seeking a formal apology from Britain for the deportation of Acadians more than two centuries ago. Stephane Bergeron's private member's motion sought all party support to request a British apology for the expulsions from the Maritime provinces between 1755 and 1763.

Bergeron, who had lobbied Acadian Liberal MPs in the week leading up the vote, made a last-ditch appeal Tuesday in the House. "It's not designed to rewrite history. . .it is designed to heal old wounds. If the House cannot take this step, who will?" he said. "Rejecting this motion would be a new rebuff to the Acadian people and will result in feelings of bitterness and mistrust."

Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, who is from Moncton, said she voted against the motion for an apology because most Acadian groups don't want to dwell on history. "The majority of them are telling me we want to look ahead on this, and that's what we've done," she said after the vote.

The motion had received backing from several Acadian organizations including the New Brunswick Society of Acadians and the Federation of Francophone Municipalities in New Brunswick and the National Society of Acadians, which represents Acadians as far away as Louisiana. Yvon Godin, New Democrat MP for the New Brunswick riding of Acadie-Bathurst, supported the motion.

The British Crown has made several apologies in recent years, including to the Maori people of New Zealand who lost vast tracks of territory to land-hungry settlers over 130 years ago. It has also issued apologies relating to the Boer war; the Irish potato famine; and for Britain's role in the 1938 appeasement of Nazi Germany that led to the end of democracy in the Czech Republic, then part of Czechoslovakia.

The decision by British governors to remove an entire ethnic population -- the French-speaking Acadians -- from the colony of Nova Scotia had consequences that resonated for generations. It's believed about 11,000 Acadians were deported from what is now the Maritimes between 1755 and 1758. It's estimated another 3,000 hid in the forests of Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Others sailed south to Louisiana where, over the centuries, they lost their language and much of their culture in the huge U.S. melting pot.

There are now about 245,000 francophones, most of them Acadians, in New Brunswick, another 34,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia and 5,500 in Prince Edward Island.

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