The Canadian Government is being accused of withholding documents that would prove sexual abuse in the St. Anne's Indian Residential School. The victims need the documents in order to be properly compensated. Sexual abuse is compensated at a much higher rate than other forms of abuse and it would appear that the government would prefer to pay less than the victims deserve, effectively abusing them again.
NDP MP Charlie Angus sent a letter Monday to Justice Minister Peter MacKay, charging the government with breaching its legal obligations to residential school survivors and calling for extreme steps to repair the damage done to the rights of survivors.
"I imagine anyone looking at this would be appalled by the actions of the federal government," Angus said in an interview with CBC News.
Angus's letter to MacKay is the latest step in a dispute between the federal government and former students of St. Anne's Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont. The former students accuse the federal government of withholding documents that would help them prove their claims of abuse. Angus has been pressing the government for months on the issue, with little success.
Children at St. Anne's endured horrific abuse, including sexual abuse, torture in an electric chair and being made to eat their own vomit.
Hundreds of those students have sought compensation under the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), which is part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Terms of the agreement spell out the government's obligations to hand over documents to adjudicators with the IAP, including those mentioning abuse at the schools in question.
A five-year OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) investigation resulted in the conviction of several former employees of the school. Court documents show that in 2003, the federal government applied for and obtained copies of the court transcripts when it faced lawsuits by former students.
However, documents show that federal officials said, for the purposes of the IAP, that there were "no known incidents found in documents regarding sexual abuse at Fort Albany IRS." It turns out the government not only knew about the OPP documents that detailed the abuse, but it had them in its possession.
Please pray that the government would come clean with these documents and that the victims would be properly compensated. Also pray that the victims would completely recover from any abuse they have suffered, and that any children or grandchildren would not suffer abuse as a result the original evil done.
For more on horror that was the Indian Residential School system, please see: http://northwoodssaveachild.blogspot.ca/2013/05/unreal.html
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| Boys in a classroom c. 1945 at St. Anne's Indian Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont. |
"I imagine anyone looking at this would be appalled by the actions of the federal government," Angus said in an interview with CBC News.
Angus's letter to MacKay is the latest step in a dispute between the federal government and former students of St. Anne's Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont. The former students accuse the federal government of withholding documents that would help them prove their claims of abuse. Angus has been pressing the government for months on the issue, with little success.
Children at St. Anne's endured horrific abuse, including sexual abuse, torture in an electric chair and being made to eat their own vomit.
Hundreds of those students have sought compensation under the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), which is part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Terms of the agreement spell out the government's obligations to hand over documents to adjudicators with the IAP, including those mentioning abuse at the schools in question.
A five-year OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) investigation resulted in the conviction of several former employees of the school. Court documents show that in 2003, the federal government applied for and obtained copies of the court transcripts when it faced lawsuits by former students.
However, documents show that federal officials said, for the purposes of the IAP, that there were "no known incidents found in documents regarding sexual abuse at Fort Albany IRS." It turns out the government not only knew about the OPP documents that detailed the abuse, but it had them in its possession.
Please pray that the government would come clean with these documents and that the victims would be properly compensated. Also pray that the victims would completely recover from any abuse they have suffered, and that any children or grandchildren would not suffer abuse as a result the original evil done.
For more on horror that was the Indian Residential School system, please see: http://northwoodssaveachild.blogspot.ca/2013/05/unreal.html
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