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Why the Pope's trip to Canada matters to indigenous communities

Pope Francis is due to apologise for the way Canada's indigenous community were treated by some Catholics in residential schools.

It will be the first time the Pope has made such an apology on Canadian soil - something which an inquiry into the scandal urged the Catholic Church to do back in 2015. It said what went on in the residential schools amounted to 'cultural genocide'.

Joy SpearChief Morris is an indigenous Canadian writer and journalist with the Globe and Mail. Her mother was forced to go to a Catholic residential school and other relatives were sent to schools run by the Anglican Church.

She told Newshour's Jon Donnison why she thinks the Pope's apology is just "a part of the history" of the schools.

(Photo shows crosses marking graves at the Ermineskin Cemetery near the site of the Ermineskin Residential School in Maskwacis, Alberta. Credit: Patrick T. Fallon AFP)

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3 minutes