Court Orders Government to Reveal Documents about Residential School

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

A judge has ordered the federal government to make public thousands of documents that contain investigation of one of the most egregious incidents of abuse in Canada’s residential school system, explaining that it will help the compensation claims of the survivors of St. Anne’s residential school. Almost sixty survivors of St. Anne’s are entangled in legal battles since more than a year, who have finally been able to make the federal government release the documents created during a police investigation in the 1990s.

While announcing the decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell mentioned that “the documents speak to the sexual and physical abuse suffered by students at St. Anne’s.” On the other hand, the lawyer for the St. Anne’s survivors, Fay Brunning, mentioned in an email that “finally, the level of abuse at St. Anne’s is being recognized and they will not have to prove the terrible conditions of the school in each hearing by themselves.” He added that “the adjudicators and claimants are going to obtain a true picture of the horrors of attending that school.”

Additionally, the lawyer for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established by the government to create a historical record of Canada’s residential school system, Julian Falconer, alleged that “this case is nothing short of landmark, because what it does is it protects history.” He added that “what occurred at St. Anne’s — electrocution of children, forcing children to eat their own vomit — are atrocities that, but for the protection of these documents, would eventually go forgotten.”