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	Residential Schools Suit Can Proceed, Court Rules The Sudbury Star December 23, 2011 http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3415257 The Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision that granted certification status to several residential school class action lawsuits against the federal government. In Wednesday's decision, the court dismissed a federal government appeal of the class-action status decision. The claims, which haven't been proven in court, allege the Canadian government "forcibly confined" the complainants -- Newfoundland and Labrador's Innu, Inuit and Metis people -- to the residential schools in the province "and systematically deprived them of ... a healthy childhood," the decision says. The claims concern former students of five residential schools, four in Labrador and one on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland. The schools were in operation before the province joined Canada in 1949, and operate for several decades afterwards. Lawyers for the class action members estimate there are 5,000 to 6,000 living members of the class, and as many as 4,000 of them are constituents of the Nunatsiavut government. In May 2006, the government announced the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which would give settlement payments to eligible students of former residential schools. But former students who went to residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador were not included in the settlement. In appealing the certification of the class action suits, the government argued that it "owed no legal duty" to the claims because the schools existed before 1949.
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