St. Anne's Residential School survivors are before the Ontario Superior Court today in a bid to get the federal government to release documents the former students say would help corroborate their claims of abuse.
The documents they want are from a five-year Ontario Provincial Police investigation in the 1990s, as well as files from the subsequent trials that resulted in several convictions against school staff and supervisors.
St. Anne's operated in Fort Albany, Ont., near James Bay, and was the site of some of the worst cases of abuse in the country, including physical and sexual abuse. Survivors tell stories of children being forced to eat their own vomit and of the nuns and brothers shocking children as young as six in a homemade electric chair.
Victims advocate Edmund Metatawabin speaks during a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa in July to make a call for justice for St. Anne's Residential School survivors. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
"We're just so tired of trying to convince people that this happened," said Edmund Metatawabin in an interview with CBC News. He attended St. Anne's for eight years starting in 1956.
Under the residential school settlement, former students can make a claim for compensation through the independent assessment process (IAP). In a private hearing, they tell their stories to an adjudicator. The adjudicator is meant to have information on the school, known perpetrators and convictions in advance. However, until recently, the information provided on St. Anne's said there were no known incidents of sexual abuse at the school, despite the police investigation and trials.
Fay Brunning, a lawyer representing some of the former students, said she pointed this out to the government. At first, the federal government said it had no obligation to get the files from provincial authorities. But Ottawa had obtained many of the files 10 years ago and still has them.
"What's happening is individual people are going in and they're basically having to start from scratch with every adjudicator every time, because this entire body of evidence has not come forward," Brunning said in an interview with CBC News.
The government has amended the St. Anne's "narrative" for adjudicators to include all the known convictions, but only did so after the battle over the documents began.
In its submission to the court, the government cites privacy concerns when arguing against disclosing the files. But it also argues that evidence from investigations and trials pertaining to certain victims should not be used for claimants not involved in those cases.
"It is Canada's position that such evidence is both inadmissible and irrelevant in the context of an IAP claim," the submission said, adding that the extra evidence is also not necessary for a former student to make a successful claim when St. Anne's former students have so far had a very high claim success rate.
"There is no practical requirement for corroborative evidence in respect of alleged acts of compensable abuse."
Brunning disagrees.
"The federal government has a duty to disclose all documents in its possession that contain allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the school. There's no exceptions," she said.
The independent assessment process was supposed to be non-adversarial. But survivor Metatawabin says this dispute shows him the government sees itself as a defendant.
"And when you begin to defend yourself, you begin to hide things. That's exactly what the government is doing. They're hiding evidence," he said.
There are many intervenors in the case. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is also arguing for access to the documents. The Assembly of First Nations supports the commission's bid as well as that of the survivors'. Also intervening are the OPP, the Office of the Chief Adjudicator, and the Sisters of Ottawa.
Mobile users, download the documents here:
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