OTTAWA - For three decades, Willie Blackwater suppressed the pain. At age 39, he released his torment when a compassionate RCMP officer named Al Franczak asked if he’d ever been sexually abused.
What poured out was a horrific account of repeated rape and beatings 30 years earlier at the Port Alberni residential school on Vancouver Island.
Blackwater’s courageous revelations, along with those of 17 other former students, helped seal some of the very first related criminal convictions against Arthur Henry Plint, a sadistic dormitory supervisor.
They also bolstered the class-action claims that would ultimately lead to a massive compensation settlement and a historic apology to be offered Wednesday in Parliament.
Blackwater will be in the House of Commons when the prime minister finally stands to atone on behalf of all Canadians for what so many terrorized, isolated children endured.
Ottawa conceded 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the defunct network of federally financed, church-run schools was rampant. But no prime minister has ever officially apologized.
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