BishopAccountability.org
	Chronicles of Abuse Residential School Survivors Tell Their Stories By Peter Walsh Labradorian June 15, 2009 http://www.thelabradorian.ca/index.cfm?sid=260865&sc=347 All that's left is the waiting. After three days of lawyers' submissions this week in St. John's Supreme Court, about 3,000 former students at the province's residential schools must wait until late fall to learn their fate. That's when Justice Robert Fowler will decide whether their accusations of abuse and neglect will go through the courts as a class-action law suit, or proceed one by one. Lawyers for the former students - mostly Inuit and Metis - say most of their clients do not have the financial or emotional clout to fight on their own. The details of this story are similar to those involved in the historic - and massive - settlement and apology last year to residential school survivors across Canada. In that case, the federal government agreed to pay about $5 billion to tens of thousands of aboriginal people as compensation for the abuse they endured while in school. Newfoundland and Labrador aboriginal people were not represented in those discussions and were shut out from compensation. That's why aboriginal former residential students here have their own legal case, which ultimately could cost the federal government several hundred million dollars. It's a complicated legal matter, but people are at the heart of it. On page A11 & 12, three former students tell their stories, which take us inside the walls of the province's residential schools.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.