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Government of Canada to offer national apology to Sask. First Nation

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The Government of Canada is scheduled to deliver a national apology to Peepeekisis Cree Nation in Saskatchewan on Wednesday.

Marc Miller, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, will be in the community on Wednesday morning to offer an apology on behalf of the federal government, the ministry announced in a news release.

Miller is scheduled to speak at 9 a.m.

Peepeekisis Cree Nation is located approximately 110 kilometres northeast of Regina, Sask.

Minister Miller was in Regina on Tuesday, where he visited the cemetery of the Regina Indian Industrial School.

FILE HILLS COLONY

Peepeekisis Cree Nation was home to a rarely acknowledged part of Canada’s residential school history – the File Hills Colony.

The colony was located on Peepeekisis from its inception in 1898 until it concluded in the 1940s.

Participants in the colony were selected for the so-called social experiment after graduating from residential schools and industrial schools.

A barn and horse team on Maple Grove Farm, File Hills Colony, belonging to a graduate of an industrial school. (Source: United Church of Canada Archives)

Colony members were forced to work on a community farm which was located on what is now called Peepeekisis Cree Nation. They were not permitted to return to their home communities where they had originally lived before attending residential school, where most of their families were still living.

With files from CTV News Regina’s Stefanie Davis

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If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419, or the Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll free line at 1-800-721-0066.

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.

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