Residential School Survivors Sue for Dignity Not Money

The decision of the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal yesterday to uphold the certification, or class action status, of actions brought on behalf of residential school survivors, is welcome news to the survivors and their legal team.

The Government of Canada is resisting the claims, saying that unlike in the provinces and territories outside Atlantic Canada, they did not have a hand in running the schools.  Yesterday’s decision recognizes that there is a case to be made that the Government of Canada is legally responsible for abuses at the schools.

These abuses ran the gamut from cultural abuse to physical and sexual abuse, and affect about 5,000 living residential school survivors and close family members.  Four of the schools were located in Labrador, and one in St. Anthony.

The Nunatsiavut Government knows that close to 4,000 of the class members are constituents.  Nunatsiavut is supporting the class actions, although Nunatsiavut is not formally a party to the actions.  Minister of Finance Danny Pottle was with me yesterday when we received the court’s decision.

Danny’s emotional response to the news that the class actions could go forward gave me a valuable insight into how Innu, Inuit and Métis view these claims.  Sure, the actions advance a claim for a remedy in money damages, because that is the only remedy which our system of laws has the power to grant.  But the actions have a bigger and more important dimension.

The class actions truly are about reconciliation between aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canadian society.  Access by aboriginal people to one of the critical levers of power in Canadian society – the legal system – can make even the least citizen the equal of a King.  Access to justice through the legal system may take aboriginal peoples in Newfoundland and Labrador several steps down the long road toward full and dignified participation, on their own terms, in the work-in-progress that is Canada.  How much greater will Canada be in the eyes of the world when this historic unfinished business is complete!