A Regina lawyer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of day-school survivors on the Red Pheasant First Nation.
The plaintiff in the case attended the school from 1968 to 1977 where he was frequently sexually abused by a gym teacher.
He also suffered emotional abuse and was often hit with a strap.
Merchant says victims like this deserve compensation similar to other residential school survivors
“We want compensation but we want a recognition of the wrong-doing because it’s the same wrong-doing that the government and the people of Canada have now recognized was wrong and a mistake for First Nations people in a residential school context.”
He says the lawsuit is the first in a series of actions that will be launched on behalf of day-school survivors across Western Canada.
“It was the same plan starting in the 1940’s and the 1950’s to beat the Indian out of the red child and turn that child into a semi-white adult, take away their culture. All the same things were happening, they were just happening in a different frame-work of facilities.”
He adds the students also deserve an apology.