Residential school survivors’ claims dismissed
Judge rules government did not hide documents
An Ontario Court has dismissed two claims by St. Anne’s Indian Residential School survivors, saying no judicial probe is needed into the actions of the Canadian government because it did not hide 12,000 documents detailing abuse suffered while at the notorious school.
Survivors of the James Bay residential school have spent years trying to convince authorities that an investigation was needed regarding the access to 12,000 documents that were part of a lengthy criminal probe concerning abuse.
Five former church employees were convicted.
Ontario Superior Justice Paul Perell dismissed the claim concerning the 12,000 documents, known as the Cochrane documents, which are transcripts of confidential and privileged examinations for discovery of the testimony of nearly 1,000 St. Anne’s survivors who suffered sexual, physical and emotional abuse while at the school.
Perell said Canada has provided a “transparent explanation for why the balance of the Cochrane documents have not been produced. The documents are confidential and privileged,” he wrote in his April 24 ruling.
The second dismissed claim is from the St. Anne’s survivors — Edmund Metatawabin and the Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin Association (St. Anne’s Survivors Association), and K-10106, a female claimant. They requested a judicial investigation and an order extending the independent assessment process (IAP) deadline for former students of St. Anne’s school who did not file an IAP claim, and an order reopening IAP claims. This was all denied. From the early 1900s to 1976, children from remote northern First Nations including Weenusk, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany and Moose Factory were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to St. Anne’s Indian Residential School, which was operated by the Catholic Church and funded by the government of Canada as part of a nationwide effort to try to assimilate indigenous children to Canadian culture.
For more than a century, 150,000 indigenous children were taken away from their parents and sent to residential schools.
Former St. Anne’s students Metatawabin and his brother Mike frequently travelled to Toronto from their James Bay homes along with dozens of other survivors to be part of the court case.