"Administrative Split" Left Some Residential School Victims Ineligible for Compensation
By Christopher Curtis
Lawyers working for the federal government used a technicality to avoid compensating a man who survived sexual abuse at an Indian residential school in Quebec, legal experts say. The survivor, an Innu man, says he was molested by a priest and a nun while attending a residential school near Sept-Iles between 1969 and 1971. And while a judge deemed the claim “credible” in a 2015 legal document, federal lawyers managed to get it thrown out because it occurred after the school’s administration was transferred to the province in 1969. A confidential memorandum obtained by the Montreal Gazette suggests the federal government knew this distinction was merely technical. The federal government document shows that even after 1969, the Sept-Iles residential school was being run by the same nun who administered it when it was a federal Indian Residential School with documented cases of sexual and physical abuse. The claim was one of an estimated 1,000 rejected across Canada because of this technicality — often referred to as the “administrative split.” That estimate, first reported by The Globe and Mail, comes from independent officials who evaluate residential school abuse allegations. About 90,000 survivors of the residential school system are eligible for compensation under a 2006 settlement agreement reached with the Canadian government. The $5-billion settlement is the largest class-action payout in Canadian history and it includes additional compensation for victims of physical and sexual abuse. To receive compensation for abuse, survivors testify at the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), recounting their experience to an adjudicator who would either process or reject the claim. It’s ludicrous. … I think that these were additional interpretations thrown onto the agreement. I don’t believe they’re correct.” But beginning in 2010, lawyers representing the federal government argued that Ottawa is not liable for abuse that occurred after the administration of residential schools was transferred to provinces across the country. And in many cases, the adjudicators agreed with this logic. “It’s ludicrous,” said Kathleen Mahoney, a lawyer who helped negotiate the 2006 settlement agreement on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations. “It’s not even the letter of the law, in my opinion, I think the letter of the law is in the (settlement) agreement and I think that these were additional interpretations thrown onto the agreement. I don’t believe they’re correct.” Contacted by the Montreal Gazette, three survivors of the Sept-Iles residential school said they were unaware of the 1969 transfer from federal to provincial jurisdiction. “If there was a transfer it must have just been on paper because, on the ground, the violence never stopped,” said Florent Vollant, who attended the school from 1964 to 1970. “Nothing changed, it was the same treatment and the same mission of breaking us, of taking our identity away. You were told to fall in line and if you resisted, even a little bit, you caught a hell of a beating. What they didn’t tell you, the stuff that’s so dark you keep it inside, that’s stuff that maybe we’re better off not talking about.” “I witnessed acts of extreme violence committed against children, little children,” he continued. “What people have told you about residential school is one thing. But what they didn’t tell you, the stuff that’s so dark you keep it inside, that’s stuff that maybe we’re better off not talking about.” After news of the administrative split surfaced in February, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said the government is looking into the matter and could make significant revisions to the IAP process. Mahoney says she believes the government will act in good faith. The Sept-Iles claim rejected by a federal adjudicator is detailed in a legal document obtained by the Montreal Gazette. In it, the claimant says that one day before class, he was taken aside by a nun because his shoe laces weren’t properly tied. When the child wasn’t able to lace his shoes, he said the nun and a priest led him into a shed behind the school and molested him. The claimant’s name and age are confidential. Though the adjudicator conceded that the abuse allegations were credible, he said the victim was not, strictly speaking, a residential school student when he was molested. RELATED Get more information on aboriginal social issues By 1969, the federal government formally split the Sept-Iles residential school into two sections. The dormitories where children lived were still administered by priests and nuns who’d previously been in charge of the school. But the school itself fell under the jurisdiction of a provincial superintendent. The administrative split, where the federal government retained control of the dormitory but delegated schooling to the province, affected an estimated 50 residential schools across the country. That distinction appears to have been a tenuous one, according to a 2015 research document commissioned by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. The document states that the nun who ran the Sept-Iles school before the administrative split continued to be referred to as either “director” or “principal” of the school until it closed in 1971. “I think what this comes down to is who gets to decide what is and what isn’t a residential school,” said David Paterson, a Vancouver-based lawyer who’s had dozens of clients affected by the administrative split. “Nobody asked the students whether they noticed any change, whether the parents noticed any change. In a real sense, even after the split, they were still attending residential school.” People have to look at this and say, ‘What kind of a hare-brained system is that?'” Paterson says two of his clients were sisters who attended the same school and were sexually abused by the same person. One received compensation while the other did not because an adjudicator decided her abuse didn’t occur at a residential school. “There’s no sensible way of explaining that,” said Paterson. “People have to look at this and say, ‘What kind of a hare-brained system is that?'” Though she’s concerned about the government’s use of administrative split to avoid compensating survivors, Mahoney says she still considers the residential school settlement a resounding success. Over 90 per cent of the people who applied for additional compensation saw their claims accepted, she says. “You can’t argue with a 90 per cent success rate,” said Mahoney. “That’s unheard of. … The agreement isn’t the magic solution to reconciliation but it’s a very serious step.” Of course, there are those who will never see any form of justice for the violence they endured as children. Some of the claimants didn’t live to see compensation. “I have friends that never really left residential school,” said Vollant, who grew up to become a Juno award-winning songwriter. “It consumed them, it completely consumed them. Some of them killed themselves, some of them went on to become abusers themselves, some of them rotted away in a jail cell. “And for awhile, I was on the edge myself. I had one foot in a jail cell, it took me years to find myself, to start to heal from what I experience and, I’ll be honest, I’ll never fully heal from it. I’ll never be whole again. I still cry about it sometimes. But I’ve also done a lot of therapy, gone back into the woods, into nature, I’ve rediscovered a part of myself that was lost.” Contact: ccurtis@postmedia.com
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.