BY COLIN PERKEL, CP
Edmund Metatawabin, 66, a survivor of St. Anne's residential school in Fort Albany, Ont., is seen outside Osgoode Hall in Toronto on Tuesday, December 17, 2013.
Metatawabin remembers being placed in an electric chair at the school.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel
Photograph by: Colin Perkel , THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Survivors of a notorious Indian residential school in northern Ontario were in court Tuesday fighting the federal government for access to thousands of documents they say are crucial to their compensation claims.
The survivors accuse Ottawa of thwarting their bid for financial redress by hiding the documentary evidence related to a provincial police
investigation into St. Anne’s in Fort Albany.
investigation into St. Anne’s in Fort Albany.
The police probe in the 1990s turned up evidence of horrific abuse, including use of an electric chair and led to criminal convictions.
The federal government has maintained it has no authority to turn over the police materials.
In Ontario Superior Court, a lawyer for the Ontario Provincial Police said he had no issue turning over the records if authorized by the courts.
“In order for us to release documents, we need judicial authorization,” lawyer Norm Feaver said.
“We certainly don’t want to stand in the way of anything.”
For its part, the government now says it is taking no position regarding the documents in possession of the police.
However, government lawyer Catherine Coughlan said Ottawa could not turn over the materials it has because it received them from police on the undertaking they would not be passed on to anyone.
Some former St. Anne’s students and supporters filled the courtroom to hear the arguments over the documents.
Among them was Edmund Metatawabin, 66, a victim of the electric chair, who accused the government of trying to “hide” evidence.
Hundreds of aboriginal children from remote James Bay communities were sent to St. Anne’s from 1904 to 1976.
Several adults were convicted in the 1990s following an intensive investigation into claims of abuses at the school, which included children being placed on an electrified chair and jolted.
To settle a class-action suit arising out of the residential school system, the federal government apologized and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the abuses.
As part of the process, an independent assessment process was set up to deal with compensation claims.
Lawyer Fay Brunning, who represents some of the St. Anne’s survivors, said the claims of her clients are being hampered by the lack of access to the police documents.
“The federal government is not abiding by conditions of the settlement,” Brunning said.
She noted the government went to court in 2003, long after the criminal trials were over, and sought to have a ban imposed on the police documents pertaining to sexual and physical abuse at St. Anne’s.
“There’s relevant documentation missing that has not been produced. None of it has come forward through the (adjudication) process,” Brunning told court.
“That interferes with the flow of justice.”
But Brunning’s request to the court went further than ordering the documents turned over to the commission.
She wanted the court to issue a direction on how the documents should be used in the adjudication process, something the judge clearly had issues.
“The court can’t interfere,” said Justice Paul Perrell.
The hearings were twice interrupted when a reporter objected to a request by lawyers for the government and the adjudicator to impose a publication ban and sealing order on materials filed in the proceedings — including those already on the public record.
Later in the day, media lawyer David Tortell told the court the presumption must be one of openness, and it is up to those want a publication ban to show the necessity.
“It’s a very high burden,” Tortell said.
Perrell issued an interim order sealing most materials to allow time to hear proper arguments on the issue.
He also banned publication of identities of those going through the assessment process, unless they agree to be named.
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