Dec 23, 2020
By Jeremy Logan
Residential school survivor Evelyn Korkmaz is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to release documents that detail the sexual and physical abuse committed against thousands of Indigenous children at St. Anne’s residential school in the last century.
The school in northern Ontario is one of the most notorious of the boarding schools Indigenous children were forced to attend, and a four-year investigation by provincial police in the 1990s generated thousands of pages of material describing the mistreatment the children suffered.
Korkmaz says the government released heavily redacted copies of the documents following a court order in 2014 and should release the full documents because they are part of Canada’s Indigenous history.
They’re also part of a case launched by survivors who say the documents would support their claims for more compensation for what they endured.
Justice Brenda Brown of British Columbia Supreme Court issued an order in May that permits the federal government to destroy the police documents in the new year.
The Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Department says the government will retain the police reports until the courts determine the matters before them.
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