Government Ordered to Hand over Documents about Infamous Residential School
By Joel Eastwood
Thousands of records from a police investigation into abuses will be released to the survivors of St. Anne’s.Calling it the site of some of the most egregious incidents of abuse in Canada’s residential school system, a judge has ordered the federal government to hand over thousands of documents to support the compensation claims of the survivors of St. Anne’s residential school.Sixty survivors of St. Anne’s have fought for more than a year to have the federal government release the documents, which were created during a police investigation in the 1990s. “The documents speak to the sexual and physical abuse suffered by students at St. Anne’s,” said Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell in his decision. “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,” said Fay Brunning, the lawyer for the St. Anne’s survivors, in an email. “The adjudicators and claimants are going to obtain a true picture of the horrors of attending that school.” The documents include more than 7,000 records seized from church organizations by police during an OPP criminal investigation in the 1990s into assaults and other crimes committed against students at the former Catholic residential school in Fort Albany, Ont. “This case is nothing short of landmark, because what it does is it protects history,” said Julian Falconer, a lawyer with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established by the government to create a historical record of Canada’s residential school system. “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,” Falconer said. The federal government had resisted turning over the police documents, arguing in court it had no authority to do so. Justice Paul Perell, however, disagreed. “Canada can and must do more in producing documents about the events at St. Anne’s,” Justice Perell said in his decision, which was released Tuesday afternoon. Justice Perell ordered the government to produce the OPP documents in its possession, along with transcripts related to incidents of abuse at St. Anne’s and any other relevant documents. Hundreds of children were boarded at the former residential school in northern Ontario between 1904 and 1976. Six former employees were convicted in the 1990s following the police investigation. Edmund Metatawabin, 66, who was at St. Anne’s for eight years, remembers staff putting children in a homemade electric chair for entertainment. “They used to come to the boys’ room and put us little ones in the electric chair and turn the current on,” he said outside court when proceedings began in December. Brunning said the judge has given solid directions for the settlement agreement to move forward. “As much as it is breath-taking to realize some of our dark past as a country, we need to understand we made mistakes and that living citizens still bear the scars of that past abuse,” Brunning said.
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