The federal government says it will comply with a court order requiring it to produce thousands of police documents from a northern Ontario Indian residential school.
On Tuesday, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled the Harper government must hand over the documents from St. Anne’s School to residential school survivors.
Julian Falconer, a lawyer with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says the organization is pleased with the court decision but it should have never come to this in the first place.
“It’s disappointing that literally millions of taxpayers money are spent, or wasted in my view, on wrong interpretations of the residential schools agreement,” he says.
Falconer adds it is vital the documents be accessed in order for residential school survivors to be fairly compensated.
“When you don’t document the past, you’re doomed to forget it and this example is no different. So, it’s essential, from the TRC’s point of view, to have an accurate history of what were terrible atrocities against children.”
The documents stem from a police investigation in the 1990’s and are alleged to contain a number of abuses by school officials including the use of an electric chair as punishment.
The former students say they need to access the documents in order for their compensation claims to be fairly processed.