A long legal fight over compensation for residential school students who attended the Timber Bay Children’s Home in the Montreal Lake area will be heard at the Court of Appeal in Regina tomorrow.
This action was launched by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in 2009, which is hoping to have a lower court decision overturned.
In 2013, a Court of Queen’s Bench Judge ruled the school did not qualify as a residential school because it was not managed by the government and students were not forced to attend.
The band’s lawyer, Michael Swinwood, disagrees, but says many records supporting the claim have been lost because of a fire.
Tomorrow’s hearing will deal with his request for more documentation from the Indigenous Affairs Department.
A similar court action is in the works by the Merchant Law Group on behalf of up to 2,000 former students.
At issue in both challenges is whether the school qualified as a residential school.