Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says Canada does not have to apologize for the abuse suffered by thousands of "home children" that were shipped here by the British starting in the 19th century.

The announcement comes after Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an historic apology Monday for its role in the mistreatment of children shipped there from Britain.

Kenney says he supports a private member's bill to mark 2010 as the year of the home children, calling it a "sad period" in Canadian history.

However, he said there is limited public support for the government to issue formal apologies for historic events in general and no demand for this particular one.

According to the British government, as many as 150,000 children were sent to Australia, Canada and other former colonies between 1618 and 1967. After 1920, most of the children were sent to Australia as part of programs run by the government, religious groups and charities.

The program was designed to offer the potential for a better life for disadvantaged and impoverished children, as well as to spread a white working class throughout the British Empire.

However, a number of children ended up in orphanages and other institutions where they suffered abuse, or were sent to work on farms.

At a ceremony in Canberra, the Australian capital, Rudd apologized for his country's part in the program.

"We are sorry," Rudd told a group of former child migrants. "Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care. Sorry for the tragedy -- the absolute tragedy -- of childhoods lost."

The timing of Australia's apology likely coincides with a number of reports of abuse suffered by children in state care over the past several decades, according to CTV's Tom Kennedy.

Rudd's apology extended to the so-called "forgotten Australians," the more than 500,000 Australian children who were placed in orphanages, foster homes and other institutions during the 20th century and suffered horrible abuse.

"The Australian prime minister said that Australia had to recognize that a great evil was done to these children," Kennedy told News Channel Monday morning from London. "He also said that Australia as a nation cannot move forward until it recognizes its past."

There are about 7,000 former child migrants still living in Australia.

John Hennessey, 72, was born in Bristol, England and sent to Western Australia state, where he was beaten and sexually abused at a Christian home for boys.

"The apology should have started from England," Hennessey told The Associated Press. "They were embarrassed and Australia shamed them into it."

The British government did announce Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would apologize for the child migrant program.

However, it is unclear when that apology will be made. While some expected a statement on Monday, Brown's office said officials would consult with the surviving children before issuing a formal apology, perhaps next year.

Ed Balls, the British Children's Secretary, called the migrant program "a stain on our society" and told Sky News television that "the apology is symbolically very important."

"I think it is important that we say to the children who are now adults and older people and to their offspring that this is something that we look back on in shame," he said.

Under the program, children as young as three were taken from institutions or, in some cases, their families and shipped off to the colonies.

While some parents were told that their children were going to a better life, others were not told at all and their children were simply taken away, according to Adam Gabbatt, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper.

Siblings were often separated upon their arrival at their destination.

"It's pretty heartbreaking, if you imagine children as young as three being separated and a lot of them were never to see their families again," Gabbatt told News Channel.

Since the 1990s, Britain has tried a number of ways to reach out to survivors, including paying for trips to reunite them with their families.

But many survivors are seeking compensation for the suffering they endured. Hennessey said he thinks the British government should be liable for sending its citizens overseas and then abandoning them.

But British High Commissioner Valerie Amos said her government has yet to decide on compensating the victims.

And the Australian government has already said it will not compensate victims, saying that liability rests with state governments and the organizations that ran the institutions.

If compensation claims do make it to the courts, Canadian victims could call for compensation from the Canadian government, which so far has offered no indication it will apologize for its role in child migrant programs, according to Kennedy.

"It depends on how the now-Canadians, who were children in the U.K., how they are going to react to it," Kennedy said.

"It's possible down the road that there could be some compensation claims against the Australian government and against the British government, and if it gets into the courts in countries such as the U.K. and Australia, it could have an effect on people's attitudes in Canada, as well."

With files from The Associated Press