They told them they were going to Canada on vacation.

It wasn't long, though, before Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe's grandfather John James Rowley learned the bitter truth. Like thousands of other British Home Children, he had been sent here as cheap labour for the farms of a growing nation.

Now, Duceppe is among those calling on the Canadian government to follow Australia's example and apologize to the 100,000 British Home Children like his grandfather, who were sent to Canada.

"What is so tough to say we apologize?" asked Duceppe, likening the treatment of the Home Children to slavery. "I hope they won't say that they didn't know what was happening for 100 years."

COMMEMORATIVE STAMP

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office has no plans to apologize to the Home Children. However, he will support a private member's motion recognizing 2010 as the year of the British Home Child and commemorative measures such as a stamp.

Duceppe was very close to his grandfather, but only learned after his grandfather died in 1971 about his past as a home child.

"When I discuss with Jewish friends, they tell me the same thing about their parents who wouldn't speak about what they lived through during the Second World War. The same thing with him. It seems his life for him started here."

In some ways, Rowley's life in Canada was better than what he left behind in England. "He was born in Soho in 1895 when Soho was not radical chic. It was more like Dickens than it is now," Duceppe explained.

Rowley was placed with the Leduc family to work on their farm west of Montreal. While Rowley was treated well by the Leducs, Duceppe said he was one of the lucky ones.

"I know that it was not like that for all the home children."

Duceppe acknowledges it could come as a surprise to some that a leader of Quebec's sovereignty movement has British ancestors.

"Some of them know because they write to me. Some of them told me at first that I was mad against Canada because of what happened to my grandfather."

"On the contrary. I am in great solidarity with people who had the same kind of life as my grandfather."

ELIZABETH.THOMPSON@SUNMEDIA.CA