'Thank an Indian' shirt debate still has people talking

Our audience weighs in on controversy around shirt that Tenelle Starr wore to school

CBC News Posted: Jan 20, 2014 11:59 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 21, 2014 11:07 AM ET

Bonita Daniels, left, and Tenelle Starr were sent to the principal's office after wearing 'Got land?' shirts to school. (Sherri Starr)"First Nation teen told not to wear 'Got Land?' shirt at school" was our most visited story on cbc.ca/aboriginal last week.

"First Nation teen told not to wear 'Got Land?' shirt at school" was our most visited story on cbc.ca/aboriginal last week.

Our coverage of the story generated nearly 180,000 page views, more than 2,000 comments on cbc.ca, more than 1,000 comments on the CBC Aboriginal Facebook page, and instigated a flurry of activity on Twitter.

At the centre of the story is 13-year-old Tenelle Starr from the Star Blanket First Nation.

Tenelle Starr says she does not think her 'Got Land?' sweater is offensive. (CBC)

​The story about her decision to wear a shirt that said "Got land? Thank an Indian" to school went from small-town Saskatchewan to the national stage in a matter of hours.

Some people didn't understand why the shirt was so controversial:

• Arlyquino: "How terrible! I am so offended that by wearing this t-shirt, she has reminded us of our past atrocities, failed promises, and hypocritical policies. And hot pink too! Where does she think that she lives, in a democracy? Pfff."

• endlessfight: "​I'm white and this in no way offends me. it is the 100% truth. It's no secret that natives were here before Europeansand we have them to thank for the land that we are on. I DO get offended when other races break the law and then get treated fairly or unfairly compared to other races (blocking roads, railways, etc.). However as far as this shirt is concerned, rock it sister. you have every right too."​

• Glenfiddich: "It really bothers me when people wear shirts that make me think… in school…."

But not all people agreed with the message, "Got land? Thank an Indian."

• lladyon1: "If a white person wore something that said something different though....BIG difference in reaction .…that is a given.
• Tax Me: "I'm Canadian: I paid for my land and the only person I have to thank is myself."
• Mitch G: "However how true it may be, does one need to flaunt it? The governments of the past signed treaty's with them for the land and now we honor those treaty's everyday. Non natives should not feel like we "owe" anybody anything."

• RCMP called to investigate online harassment

  
  

  Michele Tittler has admitted to posting numerous messages on 13-year-old Tenelle Starr's Facebook page. (CBC)

  ​Starr's Facebook page was also flooded with comments, some supportive and some negative and hurtful. It resulted in Starr deactivating her Facebook profile and her family contacting the RCMP.

  Michele Tittler has admitted to posting numerous messages on Starr's page. She is the founder of an organization and Facebook group called End Race Based Law.

  • Sherry Emmerson: "...this women encouraged her "followers" to harass everyone involved in this incident......this poor girl doesn't deserve this backlash from grown adults who should know better."
  • Ken Wildman: "I am humbled that a 13 year old girl has made a delusional political group try to justify inciting fear into a child's heart to further their cause of ending race based anything. Idle No More stands with you, I stand with you."

  Some of our audience questioned our decision to interview Tittler in our story.

  • @pmlebrun: "Shame on CBC for allowing Tittler the forum to spew lies and hatred."
  • @KaraArdan: "Dear @CBC in no way does #Tittler speak for non-aboriginal Canadians!"

  
  

  This sweatshirt logo worn by two 13-year-olds to school has set off a controversy that garnered nationwide attention. (Sherri Starr)

  Starr’s school, Balcarres Community School will be hosting a treaty symposium next month where, no doubt, the "Got land? Thank an Indian" controversy will be discussed.

  Idle No More has also called for a day of action. The press release stated, "Now and up to a January 28 Day of Action, Tenelle and Idle No More and Defenders of the Land are encouraging people across the country to make the shirt and wear them to their schools, workplaces, or neighbourhoods to spark conversations about Canada's true record on Indigenous rights."

  But some of our audience wondered if the controversy was actually encouraging meaningful dialogue.

  • Jess Mander: "…The message is divisive. It divides between settlers and 'Indians,' instead of the collective, more encouraging message that we are all treaty people… Instead of acknowledging that there are still treaties being signed and that aboriginal sovereignty and land claims are an ongoing debate. It dismisses many of the current issues as history."
  • Clearwater73: "I wish we lived in a nation where aboriginals and non-aboriginals could talk sensibly about this subject without all the rancour and insensitivity. I am seventh-generation Canadian of European and Scandinavian descent… My ancestors worked extremely hard and in tough conditions to make a life here, but I know full well that it was only possible because of the treaties."
  • Courtenay Bound: "The shirt to me stokes the flames of racism. We'd never allow a white kid to wear a shirt of that nature… There would be no public support for it."

  ​Meanwhile, Winnipegger Jeff Menard, who creates the shirts,says orders have been flooding in.

  
  

  Winnipeg's Jeff Menard says orders for his 'Got land? Thank an Indian' shirts have been pouring in. (CBC)

  ​“The reason why I started this was to bring awareness to the Canadian natives and to unite our people and make them proud of who we are," he said.

  We are continuing to follow this story and will bring you the latest news and updates at CBC Aboriginal.

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Saskatchewan school officials backtrack after banning ‘Got Land? Thank an Indian’ hoodie

Girl says she was banned from school because of ‘Got land – Thank an Indian’ shirt

Balcarres, Sask., Grade 8 student Tenelle Starr and member of the nearby Star Blanket First Nation was told not to wear a sweatshirt in school that has the words "Got Land? Thank an Indian" on it, although officials have since relented

Saskatchewan school officials are backtracking on a decision to ban a First Nations student from wearing an Aboriginal land rights hoodie to school.

Tenelle Starr, 13, told CBC News that teachers asked her not to wear the sweatshirt to school because other students were uncomfortable with its message. The hoodie read “Got land?” on the front and “Thank an Indian” on the back.

“They told me to remove my sweater because it was offending other people,” the eighth grader at Balcarres Community School, which is about 90 km outside of Regina, told CBC.

“[The school board] communicated further with local First Nations representatives and felt that the slogan on the shirt clearly was meant to provide the community with a message,” Ben Grebinski, director of education for the Prairie Valley School Division said after the decision was repealed. “It was not intended to be offensive.”

CBC NewsThe sweater had the words “Got land?” on the front and “Ask an Indian” on the back

One teacher reportedly told Starr that people saw the message as “racist” and she was asked to wear the hoodie inside out instead.

Mr. Grebinski said that parents and other community members heard about the story and called the school to complain about the sweater.

“It was done to be respectful of those individuals that felt the slogan on the shirt may have been offensive. It was a way of maintaining harmony within a community.”

FacebookA Facebook image of Starr wearing the disputed sweater

But Starr felt differently about the situation.

“We were taught Indians were on this land first, so why are people offended?” Starr told CBC.

Starr is a member of the Star Blanket Cree reserve, located just outside Balcarres, Sask. The Star Blanket Cree Nation is one of the bands covered by Treaty 4, one of 11 numbered treaties signed between Canadian Aboriginals and the monarchy.

Treaty 4 represents land that covers most of southern Saskatchewan, as well as parts of west Manitoba and southeast Alberta. The treaty, which was signed on Sept. 15, 1874, allowed Europeans to settle on historically Aboriginal land.

After Tuesday’s consultation between school officials and First Nation community leaders, the school changed their mind and said that the hoodie’s message was acceptable.

“I wear it proudly around the school,” Starr said.

Sheldon Poitras, a council member for Star Blanket First Nation and a spokesperson for Ms. Starr’s family, said that he is pleased with the outcome of the incident.

“There were just some communication issues that needed to be taken care of about [Ms. Starr's] goal for awareness for the treaties,” he said. “Once we all got on the same page, everything was fine.”

Sioux Mother Rescues Abused Children. Faces Arrest

Early last year, Audre’y Eby dropped by her former spouse’s home in Iowa to visit her twin sons. She discovered that her blind child had two black eyes, and his head was swollen. The boy hadn’t seen a doctor; when he finally did, Eby recalled, the doctor said he couldn’t suggest the cause of the injuries because they were already healing.

Read more athttps://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/06/sioux-mother-rescues-abused-children-faces-arrest-152971

Sioux Mother Rescues Abused Children, Faces Arrest

Stephanie Woodard

1/6/14

The emergency room doctor was furious at what he had seen, recalled Audre’y Eby, who is Rosebud Sioux and the mother of disabled 16-year-old twins. One of her sons, who is blind and autistic, squirmed on the examination-room table, screaming, “Ow, ow, it hurts!” The doctor had found livid red and purple bruises covering his penis and scrotum, according to the Nebraska hospital’s records. Those injuries would soon lead to an arrest warrant for the mother—not because she had caused the harm, but because she did not return her son, along with his wheelchair-bound twin, to their abusers.

Indian child welfare expert Frank LaMere called the twins’ situation more extreme than any he’d seen in his many years of work in the field. “These boys are suffering,” said LaMere, who is Winnebago and the director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, Iowa.

The day before the ER visit, Eby, who is 45, drove from the Nebraska farm where she lives with her husband, Faron, to pick up her boys from their father in Iowa. It was early August of 2013, and she was going to have them for the once-a-month weekend visit the courts allow her. The boys’ father is Eby’s ex-husband; he has physical custody of the kids, and his live-in girlfriend is their primary caretaker. Eby is Native, and the father and his girlfriend are white—facts that LaMere says overshadow decisions that social-services professionals and the courts make on the children’s behalf.

During the five-hour drive to Nebraska, both twins complained. Eby put the grumbling down to the road trip—a long one for such special-needs kids. The sighted twin has cerebral palsy and can suffer painful muscle spasms, and his brother has residual discomfort from a vehicle accident he was in with his father a few years ago. “We stop for breaks, but it’s a lot of sitting still,” Eby said.

The next day, the blind twin began complaining again, and Eby saw blood in his overnight diaper. Alarmed, she and Faron loaded both boys into their car and headed for the ER. After the exam, at a moment when only health-care personnel were present, the doctor took the opportunity to ask his patient, “Who did this to you?” The child named his father’s girlfriend. The doctor questioned the sighted twin, who confirmed his brother’s story.

The doctor told Eby that the injuries were consistent with being kicked in the groin. He immediately called Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services to report alleged child abuse, hospital records show. Eby says the physician also warned her that if she didn’t keep the boys until their wellbeing could be guaranteed in Iowa, he’d have to report her for exposing children to an unsafe situation: “He said Nebraska law required him to do that.”

Eby’s fateful decision to keep her kids in Nebraska soon led to an Iowa judge issuing a warrant for her arrest. She is trapped between the laws of two states and fearful for her sons’ safety.

The Nebraska doctor’s report launched an extensive investigation by Iowa’s Child Protective Services (CPS). The investigation included another physical exam and interviews of social workers, teachers and others who’d interacted with the twins. The boys participated in a Telemed closed-circuit TV interview observed by social-services and law-enforcement personnel in Iowa and Nebraska. (The twins’ names, and that of their father, whose last name they bear, are being withheld to protect the children’s privacy. All official documents quoted here were obtained under Iowa law.)

Both children claimed the kicking occurred after the blind twin was discovered masturbating. He tells the interviewer that his dad had once threatened that “he’s gonna cut my privates off” for doing that. At one point, the boy begs, “Please help me. I’m scared.”

The investigation led to a determination that the father’s girlfriend caused the groin injuries, which means the abuse was “founded.” The father and girlfriend already had several abuse and neglect determinations between them. CPS gave the twins its highest score for risk of abuse and recommended a criminal investigation.

The girlfriend has appealed the most recent abuse finding, according to Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) documents. No charges appear to have been filed against her. She claimed the boy did the damage to himself and told CPS, “I love the boys and would never do anything to hurt either one of them.”

The father toldICTMNthat whatever happened didn’t happen in Iowa and that the couple would appeal more of the abuse and neglect rulings. Over the years, 14 additional allegations have been investigated and dismissed, he noted.

Iowa DHS documents record a startling list of incidents at the father’s home: Among many, the father recently pressed on the wheelchair-bound twin’s nose until it bled, resulting in one of the founded-abuse determinations. On another occasion, the dad poured hot sauce down that boy’s throat while the girlfriend pressed her elbow into his neck to ensure he swallowed it. A social worker recounts watching the father smash a sandwich onto the blind boy’s forehead, purportedly to get him to eat his lunch. The girlfriend has stuffed a cloth down one boy’s throat to silence him. Punishments include cold showers.

Social workers describe quasi-military discipline. “I’m a veteran, and I'm  trying to instill values like honor, loyalty and courage in my children,” the father said. “If that’s wrong, then a lot of parents are wrong.”

Judy Yellowbank, who is Winnebago and the program director at Four Directions Community Center, likened the twins’ treatment to torture. She charged that there’s a double standard in child welfare. “Native parents would be behind bars if they had committed the child abuse and neglect that these two white caregivers have,” Yellowbank said.

Following the recent kicking incident and subsequent abuse finding, Iowa DHS recommended returning the twins to their father’s home, with the caveat that the live-in girlfriend no longer be primary caregiver. When asked how that set-up would work from a practical point of view, the father refused to answer.

One of Eby’s attorneys, Judy Freking, of LeMars, Iowa, asked, “What is the purpose of a child-abuse investigation if, upon concluding that abuse occurred, DHS does not get involved, and DHS does not offer any services to correct the problem that led to the abuse of these boys?”

The father is determined to get the kids back, saying Iowa can provide them more services than rural Nebraska, where the Ebys’ farm is. He recently went to Iowa juvenile court, claiming that his ex-wife was keeping the boys in Nebraska because of “extreme hostility” toward his girlfriend. The judge agreed, writing in an order issued this past September, “It’s apparent this animosity has been a factor.” The judge noted the father’s claim that he had “fully and properly cared for the boys.” The order does not mention the founded abuse and neglect rulings or any criminal investigation.

In October, a district court judge issued an arrest warrant for Eby. She learned of it when it pinged into her email from the Iowa courts’ online system. “I couldn’t cry because my sons were here. I called Faron. He came home from work and sat with the boys, so I could get myself together. Faron has been such a powerful support in all this. We both want the boys living on the farm with us.”

After Eby and the boys’ biological father separated in 2003, when the boys were six, she cared for them. When they turned 12, she thought they should get to know their father. “At the time it seemed like a reasonable idea,” Eby recalled. As the problems in the father’s home mounted, she fought to get the boys back, succeeding briefly in 2011. Through all the abuse and neglect findings, Iowa DHS documents reveal, the agency’s goal has generally been to reunite the twins with their father, and the courts have concurred. He receives their social-security and other subsidies.

Attorney Freking wondered if the situation would have played out similarly if Eby had committed the abuse. LaMere has an answer, and it’s simple: No. He said that Eby’s situation is emblematic of the double standard Yellowbank described. Indian parents are expected to leap enormous hurdles to keep their kids—with no second chances and no benefit of the doubt, said LaMere.

“It does appear that Audre’y and her ex-husband aren’t on equal footing in terms of Iowa DHS recommendations to the courts,” said Freking.

One of Audre’y Eby’s twin sons, who has cerebral palsy, receives stitches in an Iowa emergency room. The 16-year-old and his twin brother live with their father and his girlfriend. According to court records, the girlfriend sent the teen shopping alone in his wheelchair. He got lost and tipped off a curb, gashing his forehead. The incident resulted in one of several abuse and neglect findings for the father and his girlfriend. (Courtesy Audre'y Eby)

Read more athttps://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/06/sioux-mother-rescues-abused-children-faces-arrest-152971

Just Another Dead Indian. Please Watch

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=http%3A%2F%2Fwestcoastnativenews.com%2Fjust-another-dead-indian%2F&sm=12

2013: Why no prosecution or publicity for child sex abuse and mass murders?

Judy Byington Saratoga Springs Child Abuse Examiner

December 30, 2013

The early December discovery of 30 child skeletons in a mass grave on the grounds of a United Church residential school for native children in Port Alberni, B.C. has garnered no mass media excitement.

The unmarked graves should have been no surprise."At least 28 mass graves containing the remains of indigenous children who died in the 'care' of religious and government institutions have been discovered" read the 15 April 2008 headline of the Mohawk Nation News - another story that never made it to the mainstream press.

It was easy to cover up the baby's death at the Jesuit St. Mary's Mission-School on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omack Washington. The Catholic priest buried her alive beneath the floor boards with a little girl as the sole witness. The murdered was a "throw-away child" - a minor without legal protection - allegedly killed by the baby's father because he knew he could get away with it.

He did. With no proof of the birth, there was no public outcry. No publicity. It was as if the baby never existed. We only knew the event happened because of the child witness. Her and other native children somehow survived to expose their torturous childhood at US and Canadian church and government Indian boarding schools.

Some didn't. According to a 2013 international common law court there were over 50,000 missing Indian children, some of whom were buried in mass graves at Catholic residential schools. The Feb. 2013 findings appeared to have instigated the resignation of Catholic Pope Joseph Ratzinger. www.hiddennolonger.com

As of today, the mass graves on government property have yet to be excavated, though human remains were found. www.itccs.org, http://revealingtruthinnovascotia.blogspot.com/2011/07/mass-graves-of-re...

The 2011 Jesuit Priest settlement for their abuse of child victims was the largest in the Roman Catholic church's sex abuse scandal. Yet, 500 witness' stories remained unreported. An exception was Clarita Vargas. Rev. John Morse sexually abused her at St. Mary's from second through eighth grades and she pushed the case before a judge. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/15/23252/7152/769/496538#

A Confederated Tribes' child-now-adult witness to the baby's murder wanted to testify, but the word "homicide" wasn't added to the charges. No matter. The case was settled out of court in a $166 million award to survivors. No trial happened. No priest was given jail time, much less prosecution for infants born at the school only to promptly disappear.

The Jesuits ran the Washington mission with the help of federal grants, along with their schools of the Sacred Heart in Sesmet, Idaho, St. Ignatius and St. Paul’s in Montana and St. Labre in Ashland, Oregon.

The 28 mass graves linked to a US and Canadian mind-control program eventually known as MKULTRA.http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=4575
http://www.whale.to/b/mass_graves.html

This illegal human experimentation on children began with the 1950s import of Nazis trained in Satanism at Hitler's concentration camps. According to advocates, the intermingling of child abuse by church and state appeared widespread. www.ChildAbuseRecovery.com , http://ritualabuse.us andhttp://www.wanttoknow.info/mindcontrol

The Catholic Jesuit Order fit a profile of those who took no responsibility for their crimes. Founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, these Jesuit Alumbrados or Illuminated Ones, were a secret society of noble bloodlines that combined Eastern mysticism with monotheist and mystery religions, believing they could commit any criminal, immoral or sinful act without staining their souls. Were the Jesuit's practicing elsewhere?

There was no public outcry to expose contents of the mass graves, nor reasons given as to why taxpayer dollars were used to abuse children. In the 1800s the Vatican ruled that anyone exposing information against the church faced excommunication and jail time, while US and Canadian government mind-control documents had long been destroyed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jesuits-to-pay-166m-to-settle-sex-abuse-claims/

In 2013 Kevin Annett of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State organized Catholic Priest abuse survivors in 21 countries. He awaited permission to continue digs on the 28 mass gravesites and prepared 2014 common law court action on the Vatican and other elites allegedly involved in the abuse and murder of children. http://youtu.be/-A1o1Egi20c

Government mind-control survivors approached members of Congress. You can sign the petition requesting an investigation at: http://www.change.org/petitions/us-congress-survivors-request-investigat...

Suggested by the author

Is there government cover-up of child genocide and mass graves?

Mind-control survivors claim US Government tortures children

Witnesses to Child Sacrifice?

Is the US torturing children?

Why did Congress cover-up government mind-control of children?

Cranky Old Man ... Please Read

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and 
distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and 
appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.

Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . .. . .What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . ... . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . .. . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . ... lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .. . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . .. . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . .. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. ...Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .. . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . . .. and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . .. . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .. . . . .. . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see .. .. . .. .... . ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM (originally by Phyllis McCormack; adapted by Dave Griffith)

The best and most beautiful things of this world can't be seen or touched. They must be felt by the heart!

Residential school survivors demand access to documents detailing use of electric chair

BY COLIN PERKEL, CP DECEMBER 17, 2013

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.

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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Chief Seattle

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfaters. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. 

-- Chief Seattle....

OMNIA Videos... Please watch.