It has been a long trip for Willie Blackwater, but it has resulted in an arrest, conviction and public apology before the House of Commons for the treatment that Mr. Blackwater and others suffered at a Native School in British Columbia.
Willie Blackwater is a member of a Native Canadian Aboriginal tribe, and he was sent to a residential school for Natives as were many young native children in the last century.
The prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper is scheduled to deliver an address to the House of Commons which will include an apology for the mistreatment and abuse that Mr. Blackwater and others suffered at the hands of a Native School Instructor, Arthur Henry Plint.
Mr. Plint was arrested, tried and convicted and sent to prison in 1997 for the assault, kidnapping, confinement and sexual sodomy of over 30 native Canadian boys over a decades long teaching career at the native school in British Columbia.
Mr. Blackwater is the Native individual who took the issue public, and using the court system, first at the local level, then province, and finally the Supreme Court of Canada heard about the abuse and suffering at the hands of Mr. Plint.
The court case was never about the money, but in fixing the problem. While the natives that were assaulted were settled out of court for a multimillion dollar undisclosed settlement, it was about exposing and correcting the abuse.
As Walter Blackwater sits in the gallery today and listens to the Prime Minister apologize for the mistreatment and abuse, perhaps the victims can finally achieve a measure of satisfaction at having fixed or solved the problem, at least this time.