Rampant sexual abuse of native children in residential schools

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OTTAWA — Thousands of native children suffered sexual abuse in Indian residential schools, newly disclosed figures show - a human tragedy so pervasive it's being called "monstrous."

The federal government has quietly paid out more than $350 million in abuse settlements over the last decade, the majority for sexual abuse, to 7,011 former students.

Several thousand more claims for sexual abuse at the hands of church and school officials have been filed over the last year under a 2006 agreement to compensate surviving students, the government and victims' lawyers say.

Both sides predict about 12,000 fresh compensation claims in total will be filed under the agreement - and that the "vast majority" will be for child sexual abuse.

All told, the figures suggest that at least one of every five students suffered sexual abuse at the schools, established in the 19th century to assimilate First Nations children and strip them of their aboriginal culture and language.

"It's horrible, it's monstrous," said Michael Cachagee, executive director and former president of a national group that helps former students.

Liberal MP Todd Russell, an aboriginal, said the numbers were shocking.

"In meeting residential school survivors, I mean across the country, I am not surprised at the percentage - but when you say it as a number, that is astounding."

Russell said he's heard many accounts of sexual abuse in discussions as a member of the Anglican Council of Indigenous People.

The high rate of sexual abuse suggests the isolated schools, which paid teachers and other staff poorly and failed to screen them properly, likely attracted pedophiles who saw the dismal institutions as a "gold mine," said one lawyer involved in past litigation on behalf of students.

Court evidence in lawsuits by former students suggests the churches that ran the schools on behalf of Ottawa may have transferred sex offenders to different locations to protect them and to prevent word leaking out about the extent of sexual abuse, the lawyer said.

Another lawyer, lead counsel in court proceedings that led to judicial approval of the 2006 compensation agreement, agreed.

"You've got an extremely vulnerable group of children who are isolated from their parents, who are dehumanized, who have no one to turn to, and they're in remote locations and you've got sub-par teachers," said Kirk Baert of Toronto.

"What better recipe could you have for exploitation than that? It's like a checklist of all the things you would need to have it happen a lot."

Baert also agreed the schools actively suppressed evidence of the abuse.

"They used various forms of intimidation to silence anyone who complained."

The federal government began negotiating the 2006 deal in May 2005 after facing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of roughly 80,000 surviving students claiming a total of $36 billion in damages.

Under the agreement, Ottawa will pay up to $1.9 billion to former students as compensation for simply being forced to attend the schools, separate from the abuse claims.

"They are expecting there to be 10,000 to 12,000, roughly, sexual-abuse claimants paid at the end of the day, so they are big numbers," said lawyer Darcy Merkur, who compiled a historical affidavit for legal work and fees for a consortium of 19 law firms in the class action.

James Ward, a Justice Department lawyer acting as general counsel for an Indian Affairs branch that was responsible for the issue, agreed "the majority" of the new claims are expected to be for sexual abuse.

Of the 7,011 claims in the first wave, 2,369 of 3,799 settled under a dispute resolution process the government established in 2003 involved sexual abuse, a spokesperson for the Indian Affairs Department said.

And virtually all 3,097 settled prior to that through litigation involved sexual abuse, says a lawyer who took part in the lawsuits. Time limits to sue for physical assault are more restrictive.

Another 133 claims settled so far under the new agreement involved sexual abuse, said the spokesperson, Patricia Valladao.

Of 33 affidavits from former male and female students sworn as part of the proceedings that led to the court approval of the 2006 agreement, 25 included claims of sexual abuse.

The grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, said aboriginal negotiators and leaders expected a high number of sexual abuse claims under the settlement agreement.

"Don't forget that the initial claims that precipitated all of this were for sexual abuse," said Fontaine. "We anticipated this would be like opening the floodgates."

The Liberal government of the day issued a reconciliation statement following a scathing report in 1996 from a royal commission on aboriginal peoples, which included a chapter on residential schools.

The reconciliation statement included an official apology to residential school survivors, followed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statement of apology on behalf of Canada in Parliament last June.

A spokesman for the United Church said it has been named in 1,100 claims, but he said the church had not done a "statistical analysis" to tabulate the number of claims for sexual abuse.

A spokesperson for the Roman Catholic church could not be reached and the Anglican Church of Canada did not respond to a request for an interview.

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RCMP: Probe into tasering of teenaged girl reopened JOE FRIESEN September 6, 2008 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080906.TASERJ06/TPStory/?query=Aboriginal The RCMP have reopened a criminal investigation into the case of an officer accused of tasering a teenage girl while his colleagues held her down inside a police jail cell. The girl, 16 at the time, filed a complaint with Manitoba RCMP last year and was told in July that an internal investigation had concluded no criminal offence was committed. But a month after the girl went public with her case, the RCMP decided to reopen the investigation, which will now be conducted by a senior investigator from outside the force. The girl's lawyer, Catherine Dunn, said the only thing that changed in the interim was the prominent coverage her client's case received in the media. "It was only after making her complaint public that the RCMP took the view that an independent police service should reinvestigate this matter. One would have thought that would be a preliminary decision as opposed to a review decision," Ms. Dunn said. The RCMP also confirmed to Ms. Dunn that as many as eight officers were in and around her client's cell at the time of the incident. "The number of people involved and the manner in which [the girl] was attacked is suggestive of a group sexual assault as opposed to a detention," Ms. Dunn said, referring to the fact that the tasering was inflicted within inches of her groin area. The incident occurred in November, 2007, at the RCMP detachment in Selkirk, Man., 35 kilometres north of Winnipeg. The girl, who was arrested as a minor and can't be named, was picked up by police after her parents came home, found the family minivan missing and reported it stolen. The girl was detained (but never charged) and taken to the local detachment. Police told her that since she was intoxicated she would have to be held overnight. The girl admits she resisted officers when they attempted to put her in a cell, holding onto her chair and fighting back as they dragged her away. The officers removed items of her clothing, including her bra, and threw her into the cell, the girl said. She hit out at the last officer as he left the cell, striking him in the back, at which point he called the others back in, the girl said. She believes four officers held her down, one on each limb, while a taser was used against her. The weapon struck her three times in the leg and groin area, and left her screaming in pain, she said. She still suffers irregular shooting pains in her legs and sees a psychologist to help her deal with the emotional trauma. Her mother wants to know why the officers didn't simply walk away and leave her daughter in the locked cell. She said she believes her daughter's rough treatment was exacerbated because she is aboriginal. The RCMP said in a letter to the girl's mother that the investigation will be conducted by a senior investigator with the Calgary police service, and is expected to take two to three weeks. The girl has been allowed to receive third-party feedback during the investigation, which means she has appointed someone to act on her behalf from the Manitoba Métis Federation who will receive daily e-mails or updates from police on the progress of the investigation. But the third party will not be allowed to review videotaped interviews and the video surveillance footage of the girl's cell at the time of the incident. "This decision in and of itself continues to show that the RCMP do have something to hide with respect to this incident and their investigation," Ms. Dunn said.