HOUSE OF COMMONS
CIIAMBRE DES COMMUNES
CANADA

Jody Wilson-Raybould
Attorney General of Canada
Centre Block Room 4518
Ottawa, Ontario

KIA 0A6

Dec 2015
RE: IRSSA Settlement Process for St. Anne?s Residential School Survivors 
Minister Wilson-Raybould,

At the outset, let me congratulate you on your electoral win. I was so pleased to learn that Prime
Minister Trudeau has appointed you as Justice Minister for Canada. I am also reassured by the Prime
Minister?s call for true reconciliation between Canada and Indigenous people. To this end, I am
asking you to investigate the repeated breaches of legal obligation by Justice Department of?cials in
regards to survivors from St. Anne?s Residential school.

The deliberate undermining of their legal rights during the Independent Assessment Process (IAP)
has put a stain on the credibility of the historic apology issued by Prime Minister Harper in 2008. We
now find that because of the department?s legal breaches some of these survivors have asked that
their cases be reopened.

The IAP was established under the terms of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement to
adjudicate claims of sexual and physical abuse against children in residential schools. The federal
government, through the Justice Department, played a dual role serving as lawyers for the defendant
(Canada) while also taking on an administrative role in the gathering of evidence.

As the was being established, concerns were raised about the potential con?ict of interest on the
part of the federal government that could undermine the process. I refer you to the warning issued by
Justice Winkler in Baxter v. Canada:

?The court has a general concern whenever a defendant proposed to change roles and
become the administrator of a one de?ciency in the proposed administrative
scheme that had to be addressed was the potential for con?ict between Canada ?5 proposed
role as administrator and its role as continuing litigant?non-adversarial.? The survivors of the brutal abuse at St. Anne?s
Residential School were told they could simply come and tell their story. The adjudicators then rely

on the evidence narrative provided by the Justice Department to judge the credibility of their
testimony. But the evidence narrative introduced by the federal government lawyers was a lie. The
evidence narrative falsely claimed that there was no history or documentation of abuse at St. Anne?s
Residential School. Numerous cases were adjudicated on the basis of this falsehood,

Government lawyers did not inform the adjudicators and the claimant lawyers that they were sitting
on the names of nearly 200 perpetrators of abuse identified during a five-year police investigation by
the Ontario Provincial Police. The OPP gathered over 7,000 pages of documented evidence and
hundreds of witness statements. In 1999, the Crown prosecuted and obtained convictions against a
number of former staff.

I am told that without access to this validating evidence, the claimants found their testimony
repeatedly brought into question by Justice Department lawyers. When some claimant lawyers
became aware of the existence of this evidence, Justice Department officials refused to provide the
evidence to the IAP.

In 2013, I was approached by representatives of claimants who had had lost faith in the hearings and
were deeply concerned that their cases had been compromised.

As a result of their concerns I wrote to then Minister Bernard Valcourt. In his response Minister
Valcourt admitted that Canada had known all along about the evidence of crimes at St. Anne?s but
claimed that, as the evidence had been gathered by provincial police, Canada was under no obligation
to obtain or disclose knowledge of this evidence. It wasn?t until an Ontario Superior Court hearing
later that year that we learned that the reason the government did not need to seek this evidence out
was because it had obtained full access to the evidence back in 2004 in order to prepare for the
defense of the defendant Canada.

Even the most narrow reading of the legal obligations set out in the in terms of the Independent
Assessment Process (Schedule D, Appendix 8) would have recognized the obligation to inform the
claimants and the adjudicators of the knowledge that the government lawyers had access to such a
trove of evidence. 

Justice Perrell of the Ontario Superior Court agreed when he found that this failure to disclose and
share evidence ?compromised the and denied the claimant?s access to justice. 

Unfortunately, in the wake of that decision, government lawyers continued to obstruct and defy the
Ontario Superior Court. They delayed the release of evidence and then dumped thousands of pages of
disorganized and blacked out documents. The federal government?s combative approach has put the
onus on the marginalized survivors of St. Anne?s to return to Ontario court three times in order to
force the department to comply with the most basic standards of legal obligation.

I am disturbed to learn that there are claimants who had their claims denied because they were
adjudicated in hearings that relied on the false evidence narrative.

The credibility of the IAP as a vehicle for reconciliation has been put in question by this sustained
pattern of obstruction. Ihave written to every person with authority over this process including the

former Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, the former Minister ofJustice, Chief Adjudicator, the
Oversight Committee Chair and the National Administration Committee of the IRSSA.
Unfortunately, no one appears willing to address the fact that legal hearings were obstructed through
the suppression of evidence and the use of a false evidence narrative.

The procedural and substantive rights of all Canadians must be protected but there is a special duty in
the case of survivors of residential schools. They were brutally victimized as children as a result of a
deliberate government policy to erase their identity as Indigenous people. We cannot allow the
Defendant Canada to rev?victimize them as adults in hearings that were meant to bring reconciliation.

If we take the promise of reconciliation seriously then the breaches of the legal rights of these
survivors by the federal government must be addressed. To achieve this end, I am asking you to
support the recent request by some of the Survivors to the Ontario Superior Court to re-open their
cases, which, were adjudicated under a false evidentiary narrative, and this would include supporting
the potential opening of other cases not given proper or hearings.

Instead of continuing to fight the claimants in the courts, 1 ask that you work with the Survivors of St.
Anne?s to fix what has gone ten?ibly wrong in thisjudicial process to provide real reconciliation and
healing. I am asking you to investigate the operating culture within the Justice Department. How is it
possible in 2015 for government lawyers to exempt themselves from the most basic legal, moral and
professional obligations in the disclosure of evidence and obligation to abide by Superior Court
rulings?

I have attached some of my previous correspondence and documentation on the matter. I would be
more than happy to provide any additional information and look forward to meeting with you as you
investigate these unacceptable breaches of rights of the survivors of St. Anne?s.

by;

CC: Edmund Metatawabin, Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin Association
Perry Bellegarde, National Chief Assembly of First Nations
Isadore Day, Chief of Ontario
Daniel Shapiro, Chief Adjudicator Independent Assement Process
Zeynep Onen, Law Society of Upper Canada
Mayo Moran. Chair of Oversight Committee
Justice Murray Sinclair. Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Alvin Fiddler, Grand Chief Nishnawbe Aski Nation
Grand Chief Jonathon Solomon. Mushkegowuk Council
Andrew Solomon, Chief of Fort Albany First Nation
Bruce Shisheesh. Chief of Attawapiskat First Nation
Leo Friday, Chief of Kashechewan First Nation
Edmund Hunter. Chief of Peawanuck First Nation
Norm Hardisty. Chief of Moose Cree First Nation

Sincerely,

MP Charlie gus
Timmins-James Bay