Court urged to solve ‘mystery’ of hidden Indian residential school documents
TORONTO — The courts must clear up the mystery of why the federal government withheld thousands of relevant documents from survivors who sought compensation for their horrific abuse at a notorious Indian residential school, a judge was told Friday.
In calling for a wide-ranging investigation into the non-disclosure, lawyer Michael Swinwood said one of the plaintiffs in the case was retraumatized by the initial denial of her compensation claim.
“There’s something amiss in relation to the non-production of these documents,” Swinwood told Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell. “The court needs to know why is it that we’re in this situation.”
Two survivors of St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany, Ont., are trying to persuade Perell to order the probe into the documents that flowed from a lengthy criminal investigation into problems at the school. The documents record details of the sexual and physical abuse of about 1,000 children who attended the school.