Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin Association
P. O. Box 14,
Fort Albany, Ontario.
P0L 1H0
edman.1010@hotmail.com
February 10, 2014
Honourable Peter Mackay,
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada,
284 Wellington Street, 4th Floor,
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H8
Dear Sir;
The survivors of the St. Anne’s Residential School request that the Attorney General of Canada
no longer retain lawyers from the Department of Justice to handle the IAP hearings pertaining
to St. Anne’s. We have completely lost faith and trust in the DOJ lawyers whom Justice Perell
has found were the people in the federal government who withheld the documents about
abuse of children at this school. They withheld the documents from the IAP claimants, from the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission and from Aboriginal Affairs as well.
We were in the public court room when the lawyers told the judge they had no explanation as
to why the narrative for St. Anne’s falsely claimed there was no sexual abuse at the school and
why the narrative and POI reports did not reveal the OPP investigation and criminal convictions.
Ms. Coughlan said it “must have been human error”. These lawyers, who are supposed to
uphold the laws of Canada for all Canadians (including aboriginal Canadians), have proven to be
untruthful and unreliable. They have “mistakenly misconstrued the legal obligations and
misread the scope” of disclosure required, as stated by Justice Perell in giving forth his opinion.
Many parts of the decision emphasize that incompetence.
Moreover, survivors are certainly entitled to question if these lawyers are merely
“incompetent” or were they acting in bad faith, or blindly following wrong orders. If they were
following wrong orders, we are entitled to ask who gave those orders to wrongfully withhold
the documents? While the judge said he did not have to decide, he did not find there was no
bad faith. He said there was either bad faith or incompetence on the part of DOJ.
-2-
Either way, the survivors will not accept these lawyers can or will suddenly start conducting
themselves in good faith or competently in the private hearings for the people who suffered as
children. The survivors already suffered under people who abused their authority. The Law
Society of Upper Canada passed special guidelines to protect IAP claimants, and those
guidelines apply to the DOJ lawyers as well. In private hearings, will they continue to make
similar misconstrued arguments? We are concerned these lawyers will be more determined
than ever to defeat survivors in individual hearings since the Court has rejected their
arguments. Even if these lawyers try, the well has been poisoned and the trust has been lost.
Since Justice Perell’s decision of January 14, 2014, regarding the Request for Direction on the St.
Anne’s Residential school survivors’ Independent Assessment Process, no changes have been
announced or implemented by DOJ. The non-disclosure has not been remedied. Actually it
seems to us that things have gotten worse. PKKA had a meeting in Ft. Albany last week and we
feel survivors continue to be crucified in the IAP hearings that claimants of St. Anne’s are
bringing forward. Many times we are made to feel that we are committing the crime rather
than participating in a justice system correcting past abuse.
Why are you retaining lawyers who fight for interpretations which we have proved to be
lacking, as also illustrated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission motion for release of
relevant documents in early 2013? Later we find that the DOJ lawyers ignored a court order
and continued to release those documents. PKKA is completely hesitant to recommend to
survivors that we continue trying to find reconciliation and healing under these conditions.
My god! We were just children, undergoing torture, abuse and neglect from abusers and
pedophiles without the protection of our parents nor the government or its agents. It was
against the rules for our parents to enter that total institution and therefore they can not be
blamed for their absence. It was the law for our parents to register us in residential school.
However the federal government was conspicuously absent and negligent to give us solace and
protection.
Now, in 2014, it appears that nothing has changed. The federal government lawyers refuse to
interpret the IAP process in a remedial way. In the private IAP hearings, they have violated the
rights of claimants by failing to disclose documents that should have been disclosed to
adjudicators and may support the claim. These lawyers never asked the court between 2006
and 2013 for a judicial interpretation of the scope of disclosure, and they failed to tell anyone
until November 2013 that they had obtained a Court Order in 2003 to inspect all the OPP
documents and copy many of them at that time. Even during the hearing in Toronto, the
-3-
lawyers made arguments that Justice Perell found were “all misconstrued”. Sitting in the court
room, the arguments made no sense to any of us survivors and it was insulting to listen to
lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada tell the Court that everything that was proven in
the justice system from 1992 to 1999 about the abuse at St. Anne’s was not relevant to IAP
claims for abuse.
Vulnerable claimants should no longer have to allow such incompetent lawyers in their private
IAP hearings.
The Attorney General of Canada is bound to uphold the law of Canada and we ask that you
immediately retain competent, law abiding lawyers to uphold the settlement agreement, and
to help remediate the wrongs to the St. Anne’s Residential School Survivors. We also ask for
immediate disclosure into the IAP process all the relevant documents. Survivors are dying and
aging, and the hearings should not be delayed any further by this breach of the settlement
agreement. We humbly require a meeting between the Assembly of First Nation, Peetabeck
Keway Keykaywin Association and the Chief Adjudicator.
Sent with respect for the laws of Canada,
Edmund Metatawabin, PKKA Coordinator and
former Chief Fort Albany First Nation
Cc
MP Charlie Angus,
National Chief Shaun Atleo, Assembly of First Nations
Nishnawbe-Aski Nation Grand Chief Harvey Yesno
Nishnawbe-Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler
Chief Adjudicator, Dan Shapiro
Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Valcourt
Mushkegowuk Council Grand Chief Stan Louttit
Mushkegowuk Council Deputy Grand Chief Leo Friday
Fort Albany First Nation Chief Rex Knapaysweeet
Chair Andrew Wesley, Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin (St. Anne’s Residential school
Survivors) Association
Suzanne Desrosiers
Fay Brunning