NAN Supports St. Anne’s Residential School Survivors’ Struggle for Justice

June 9, 2015

THUNDER BAY: Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler will support Indian Residential School survivors back in court today during an ongoing legal battle with the Government of Canada over documents relating to a 1990s criminal investigation into widespread child abuse at St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation.

“It is shameful that instead of moving toward revealing the truth reflected in the hundreds of signed statements to the Ontario Provincial Police the Government of Canada remains entrenched in an unnecessary fight against the St. Anne’s survivors, challenging the abuse that is obvious,” said NAN Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, who is attending today’s hearing. “The Court has ruled that the federal government has a legal obligation under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to release these documents and to produce reports that can be used by survivors in their hearings, and it is critical that survivors have proper disclosure and access to these documents in order to be fully compensated.”

The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. at Osgood Hall, Courtroom 9.

During a two-day hearing in December 2013, the federal government was exposed for having in its possession already, and challenged over its decision to withhold, extensive police files relating to sexual and physical abuse by former school employees. Beatings, rape, the use of an electric chair and other heinous acts were documented during a five-year investigation by the OPP which resulted in the criminal convictions of six school officials. St. Anne’s survivors have fought for years for the release of these documents. It was revealed that the federal government lawyers have had these documents since 2003 but failed to provide them.

In January 2014, Mr. Justice Perell of the Superior Court of Justice ordered the Government of Canada to produce these documents to claimants/survivors and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The documents should have been provided to the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) process in 2007, before any IAP claim was determined. The federal government has since provided over 12,000 documents representing some 40,000 pages of documents, but has not fulfilled its duties to organize and summarize these documents and has improperly redacted (blacked out) significant information in many documents.

Counsel for the survivors will seek the direction of the Court today, and argue that the Government of Canada is responsible for making all of the allegations found in the documents readily available for adjudicators and claimants. They are asking the Court to confirm the federal officials are required to provide summary reports discussing the allegations of abuse at the school and against particular people who are claimed to have abused the claimants.

Many survivors who were not believed as children about the abuse they suffered are now self-represented in this litigation process, having limited trust in lawyers or persons in authority to advance their claims for abuse. In the confidential IAP hearings, at which federal officials attend to challenge survivors’ stories, survivors need the strength of the collection of the facts in the documents to convince adjudicators their stories are credible and that perpetrators acted in such a heinous fashion.

“We were pleased that the Court confirmed in January 2014 that the Government of Canada has a legal obligation to release these documents, but dumping tens of thousands of unsorted and heavily redacted documents on self-represented claimants or the claimants’ lawyers has all but made them useless,” said Fiddler. “The result is that in most IAP hearings the thousands of additional documents, previously hidden by Department of Justice lawyers, with widespread statements of physical and sexual abuse, will likely not be accessible to claimants or considered, despite the fact that adjudicators in the hearings are supposed to have read everything about the school before the hearings begin.”

Counsel will also challenge how federal government redacted names in the documents it gives to adjudicators as well as the claimants. This means no one in these IAP hearings has access to a document without most names blacked out, which is not permitted under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

The government has also redacted names that are supposed to be available to the public about abuse at residential schools. In defending civil claims, Department of Justice lawyers obtained criminal trial transcripts, many of which are no longer available. Those transcripts were withheld from 2007 until August 2014. The transcripts are also being redacted by federal officials in the IAP process without judicial authority to do so. In all these issues, the federal officials failed to bring their theories to court to have them adjudicated with the signatory parties responding. Instead, federal officials are unilaterally invoking their theories, baiting former students to bring the federal government to court.

“We are hopeful that since the Court is in the role of supervising compliance with the historical IRS Settlement Agreement, the federal officials as defendants in the class action law suit settlement will realize that the Courts have the power to enforce the rights of former students who were abused so that the IAP hearings are fair,” said Fiddler. “Former students have to prove their cases, but are being challenged by federal officials in these private hearings when the documents are being made useless. We are not willing to stand aside and let federal officials fail to fulfill their required obligations to the people who were abused as children in these schools.”

For more information please contact: Michael Heintzman, Director of Communications – Nishnawbe Aski Nation (807) 625-4965 or cell (807) 621-2790 or by email mheintzman@nan.on.ca

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