Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat
Chief Adjudicators Office
Attention: Dan Shapiro
Rm 100-1975 Scarth Street
Regina, SK S4P 2H1
September 5, 2014
Fax # 306-790-4635
Re: Obligation of the IAP to ensure fair hearings for Survivors of St. Anne’s Residential
School
Dear Mr. Shapiro,
I am writing you regarding the role of the Independent Assessment Process in
ensuring that the Federal Government lives up to its legal obligations as laid out in the
Indian Residential Settlement Agreement. At issue is the refusal of the Department of
Justice to live up to its obligations under the January 14, 2014 ruling by Ontario Superior
Court Justice Perrell. The continued defiance of the Department of Justice to meet basic
legal requirements for disclosure of evidence has now cast a shadow on the the IAP. It is
incumbent upon you to assure the survivors of St. Anne’s that the IAP will remediate
these breaches.
It has been established that the Department of Justice suppressed thousands of pages of
police and court evidence contrary to their legal obligations under the Settlement
Agreement. It has also been established that they provided the adjudicators with a false
evidence narrative that was used in many hearings.
Justice Perrell has ruled that such actions “compromised the IAP and the denied
claimants access to justice.”
On June 4, 2014, I wrote your colleague Mayo Moran asking what the steps the IAP
would take to remediate this denial of justice to the survivors of St. Anne’s. In my letter I
reminded Ms. Moran that the oversight committee of the IAP has an obligation to ensure
that due process is followed:
I am sure that you would agree that failing to disclose evidence adverse in
interest to a defendant is a serious breach of legal obligation… If the federal
government will not respect these rights (to fair hearings), the IAP people in
authority must be seen holding the Department of Justice lawyers to account.
Anything less would be a perpetuation of the abuse of rights that these survivors
suffered since they agreed to a process that was supposed to be non-adversarial.
Unfortunately, I never received a response to this letter. I was surprised as I am sure that
the oversight body of the IAP must have been deeply troubled by a Superior Court ruling
that found that the IAP had been “compromised” and that the claimants had been denied
justice. However, following the Perrell ruling, the IAP did not appear to take any action
against the defendant for compromising the legal rights of the claimants. Nor has it
appeared to have taken steps to re-examine cases that have been adjudicated under the
false and misleading evidence provided by the Justice Department.
I worry that this lack of action by the IAP to remediate the situation has simply
emboldened the Department of Justice. Rather than comply with the spirit of the Superior
Court order to turn over the evidence to the survivors and their legal teams they have
provided thousands of pages of heavily redacted documents. Such redactions have made
these documents effectively useless for adjudicators and the claimants’ legal teams as the
names of witnesses and perpetrators have been blacked out.
I have been informed that there are hearings underway now where the Department of
Justice lawyers are refusing to turn over the names of witnesses to crimes being
adjudicated.
To suggest that this is simply a dispute between two “parties” would make a mockery of
the Residential School Settlement Agreement. When one party is the Department of
Justice, with endless financial resources, and the other party is made up of relatively
marginalized First Nation people with little resources and often no legal representation,
the lack of fundamental fairness is glaring.
The question I put to you is, given the pattern of obstruction by the Department of
Justice, what steps will the IAP take to reassert a fair process for the survivors? This
would include going over all the hearings that have been adjudicated under false data and
suppressed evidence. It means providing legal recourse to people who were told they
could trust the IAP to ensure fair and “non-adversarial” hearings.
The treatment of the survivors of St. Anne’s residential school has been a black mark on
the historic Residential School Apology of the Prime Minister. There is a moral and
historic duty on the part of the IAP to correct this ongoing abuse of justice.
I look forward to hearing from you in this matter.
Charlie Angus
cc
Edward Mettawabin PKKA
Alvin Fiddler, Deputy Grand Chief Nishnawbe Aski Nation
Leo Friday, Deputy Grand Chief, Mushkegowuk Tribal Council
Murray Sinclair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Zeynep Onen, Law Society of Upper Canada