Class-action lawsuits seek damages for residential school abuse

ST. JOHN'S
SUE BAILEY
The Canadian Press

09/06/10

Thousands of former residential school students in Newfoundland and Labrador have won the right to sue the federal government after they were left out of a historic multi-billion dollar compensation package.

Their class-action lawsuit was certified by Justice Robert Fowler of the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court on Monday and their lawyer says if it’s settled, it could top $500 million.

The case involves about 5,000 Labrador Metis, Innu and Inuit students who attended five schools in the province and are seeking damages over allegations of sexual and physical abuse along with cultural losses, one of the group’s lawyers, Steve Cooper, said Tuesday.

He bases the value of an out-of-court settlement on similar cases in other parts of the country.

Ottawa can appeal the certification within 30 days.

Margot Geduld, a federal spokeswoman for Indian and Northern Affairs, said the government is reviewing Justice Robert Fowler’s decision.

Ottawa claims it had no involvement with the schools and excluded former students from its official apology and $4-billion compensation deal.

The allegations in the class-action lawsuit involve the Yale, Lockwood, Makkovik, Nain and St. Anthony schools. German-based Moravian Missionaries ran two of the schools while the International Grenfell Association, a non-religious charity, ran three. None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been proven in court.

Cindy Lyall said she was almost six years old when she moved as a young Inuit girl to a student dormitory in North West River in Labrador to start residential school.

A year later, she said she was raped by an older student and sexually abused by another person.

“I grew up, I never ever really felt like I belonged anywhere or fitted in place anywhere. I always felt awkward ... like I wasn’t as good as anyone else,” said Lyall, who is now 46 and is part of the lawsuit.

“An apology would be nice.”

The class action also includes some immediate family members of students who attended the schools.

Cooper said many were devastated when they were left out of the compensation package and official apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper almost two years ago. Ottawa has argued the schools existed before the province joined Canada in 1949.

It therefore claims it is not responsible for what happened at the schools between 1949 and when the last closed some 30 years later.

Cooper calls that argument “factually incorrect.”

He said Canada adopted responsibility for the well-being of the Labrador Metis, Innu and Inuit students when the province became part of Confederation.

“They truly have been revictimized by the government’s unconscionable and unreasonable decision to maintain their exclusion,” he said in an interview.

“There were reasons, I presume, that they were excluded at the time that the negotiations took place. There were just no representatives there to represent them around the table (during talks), largely in Toronto. But there’s no excuse for this now.”

Geduld declined to comment on why the province was left out.

But she noted that the historic compensation deal for former students in other parts of Canada was reached with input from aboriginal leaders and was approved by courts in nine jurisdictions.

Cooper said he has worked on residential school cases elsewhere in the country since 1997 and is baffled by Ottawa’s position.

“Our clients — and I’ve spoken personally with hundreds of them — are distraught, are confused, are frustrated, are feeling victimized by a system that is exclusive.

“The fact that the prime minister in his apology expressly excluded the people of Labrador in his apology was extremely hurtful.”

Many parents were forced to enrol their children in the schools under threat of arrest, he said.

Lyall said a cash payment could never erase the trauma she suffered, but she hopes compensation would help former students get help.

She, her sister and brother were placed in residential school after her parents divorced and her father couldn’t care for them, she said.

Lyall, who lives in St. John’s, said she is still fighting battles from her experience.

“I’m in recovery and I’m getting treatment,” she said of her diagnosis 10 years ago of depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s sad to see people and know that they probably suffered terrible abuses and haven’t been able to deal with them.”