44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 21, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/21/22 1:08:31 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay. Today I am particularly thinking about the Cree communities in upper James Bay, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Peawanuck, Kashechewan, Moosonee and Moose Factory, plus the people who have been spread across Canada, all of whom connect back to a horrific institution called St. Anne's residential school.
It is important, as we talk about the act to amend the Judges Act to reflect on one of the darker decisions of the Supreme Court, its refusal to look at the miscarriage of justice that was committed against the children at St. Anne's, giving no reason or explanation. When we talk about amending the Judges Act, I think of a great parliamentarian, Rona Ambrose, who spoke up about the need for judges to get basic and legal education in dealing with sexual assault, because we have seen a number of really bad decisions, which have been referenced here. However, it is also important that our judiciary understands the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the obligations of Canada, and that includes the courts, to address issues in terms of the equity and rights of indigenous peoples.
If we look at the cases of St. Anne's residential school, it is clear that any indigenous person looking at this would wonder how it is possible to get justice in Canada. It is not a complex issue. I will talk about a really powerful woman, Evelyn Korkmaz, who suffered horrific sexual violence as a child at St. Anne's, and the collusion of the Grey Nuns, who covered it up.
When she went to the hearings to tell her story, the first thing the adjudicator told her was that he was a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. They were there to adjudicate crimes against the Catholic Church and the first thing she was told by the adjudicator was that he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. Then he told her he knew the nuns of St. Anne's, that he knew that order and that they were good women. She said she knew right then that she was not going to be believed.
In any other court process, that case would have been thrown out, but not in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. One of the reasons the adjudicator did not believe Evelyn Korkmaz's story of the horrific sexual violence was that the other defendant in the case, Canada, had the legal obligation in the hearings to prepare the evidence. The adjudicator looked at the evidence supplied by the Department of Justice Canada and it said one line: that there were no known incidents of sexual abuse at Fort Albany Indian residential school. What was not told to the adjudicator was that the justice department had 10,000 pages of police testimony and witness names of rape, torture, violence and forced abortions on children in that evil institution.
I think of this man who goes by the name of H-15019. He suffered horrific sexual violence. He went into the hearings to expose Father Lavoie and the justice department lawyers said he was not believable because Father Lavoie was not in the institution when the man claimed he was. As proof, they presented a two-page person-of-interest report, which was their legal obligation, on all the known potential perpetrators. A two-page person-of-interest report said Father Lavoie was not there. What the justice department was sitting on were 2,472 pages on a sick evil man who, through four decades, raped multiple generations of children.
The case of H-15019 was thrown out, and when they tried to have his case reopened, the justice department and the federal government forced this case to the B.C. superior court, even though this happened in Ontario. Why would they do that? They did that because they knew that the survivors did not have the money to go to the B.C. superior court. How could anyone claim that this was a just process? What happened in that case was that, after the justice department decided to suppress the evidence, it shut the hearings down and denied justice. This is not a very complex issue.
Multiple legal battles went on for 10 years and, finally, Parliament called on the government to settle with the St. Anne's survivors. The former minister sent, on March 18, 2021, a request to have the cases of St. Anne's reviewed. We thought, finally, there would be justice. That is all the survivors wanted. They wanted to review what had happened with the suppression of evidence.
However, if we read the report, the request for direction sent by the federal government, it did not ask the courts to review this to get justice for children whose rape and torture had been suppressed. It did this because it said that people speaking up about St. Anne's was making the government look bad. It is right there in its request for direction. Do we know who it blamed for making the government look bad? It blamed former senator Murray Sinclair, because he said that there cannot be reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's, as well as Dr. Pamela Palmater, who raised issues about what happened at St. Anne's.
Edmund Metatawabin, the survivor of the abuse, who speaks for the survivors, his name is in the government request for directions, saying that he is making the government look bad for the abuse that he suffered. Interestingly, of course, I am in there for about 30-some pages, but I do not mind that.
However, Osgoode law professor Jennifer Leitch was named by the government as making them look bad because she wrote, “The government’s non-disclosure raises significant concerns about the scope of the information available to the adjudicators; the claimants’ abilities to establish abuse allegations and the scope of the compensation.” A professor of law said that this is a flawed process.
The instructions given to Justice Pitfield to look at this excluded many of the horrific cases and he was directed that he was not to talk to the survivors. What kind of justice system is that? He examined 427 cases and he came back in his preliminary and he said that 81, at least, had a serious need for re-examination. That is 20% of those cases falsely adjudicated.
However, in the final report, he said, no, it was just 10, student on student, with no blame to clergy, no blame to staff, no blame to government and no involvement with survivors. Of course, the survivors took this to the Supreme Court.
When I talked to the survivors yesterday about the fact that the Supreme Court would not hear their case, they said that they were not surprised because this was a never a fair fight. They went with pro bono lawyers. There were days where they could not afford their own bus fare to get to the hearings, yet Canada spent millions of dollars on lawyers to shut this down. It was never a fair fight.
This is why I refer to this when we are talking about Bill C-9. I am not questioning the wisdom of the Supreme Court. I am questioning the lack of understanding of the obligation, in this time, to understand the obligations under truth and reconciliation to say that we have a higher level of justice to attain here.
One of the fundamental arguments of the government was that the survivors were not entitled to procedural fairness. Procedural fairness has been ruled by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right. What it meant was that the fact that they did not bother to supply any evidence and they lied in hearings, that was okay, because the survivors were not entitled to the basic principle of procedural fairness. If we look at the evidence that the government brought forward as to why procedural fairness was not a right, they put it under sealing orders so that people could not see it. What is this, Soviet-style justice?
Phil Fontaine, who signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, wrote that they would never have signed this agreement if they were giving away fundamental legal rights under this process, which would give them fewer rights than they would get in court. Of course, Canada ridiculed Mr. Fontaine's response and said that this issue of procedural fairness was completely irrelevant.
It is completely relevant.
On this day, the day after the Supreme Court has shrugged and said that, whatever happened at St. Anne's, whatever happened with judges who misread the reports because they were lied to by the justice department, whatever is said about perpetrators of horrific abuse, and we have many of their names, such as Bishop Leguerrier and Arthur Lavoie, those men got away, and the survivors are still living with injustice. They deserve better in this country.
They never asked for huge compensation. They asked the government to sit down and recognize that what was done to them was one of the most horrific, evil acts ever committed against innocent children. Those innocent children have had their legal rights undermined time and time again by a system that wanted to shut this process down.
If we are talking about amending the Judges Act, we have to look at what happened at St. Anne's and why there was no understanding on the judge's part of the need to hold this government and the justice department of Canada to account.
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- Oct/21/22 1:19:53 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, I guess when I began working with the St. Anne's survivors 10 years ago, I had this naive belief that Canada's justice system would work. I believed that the justice department of Canada would follow the law. It was the decision by justice department lawyers to obtain the evidence, prepare their defence and know who all the perpetrators were but then black the names out and not turn over those documents that undermined this process. I think it is hard even for judges to believe that this could have happened, so they accepted the justice department's excuses. It is political at the first level.
On the issue of reconciliation that we talk about, there is no possibility of reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's survivors. There needs to be an understanding of what went wrong in that process and what has gone wrong in other cases dealing with indigenous people before the courts so that the judges understand the need to have a broader view of their roles and responsibilities.
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- Oct/21/22 1:23:19 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
It is important to ensure that the system protects the rights of victims. In the case of survivors of St. Anne's and other residential schools, the problem is that the government established an alternative process, an alternative tribunal. In this system, there are no tools to give the victims and survivors recourse if the court's decision is problematic. As a result, the court must protect the rights of survivors within the tribunals for Indian residential schools, which are part of an alternative system.
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- Oct/21/22 1:21:29 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, the fact that we are looking at amending the Judges Act is a positive thing, because we see, certainly in the United States, where questions about the judiciary has really raised questions about the legitimacy and trust in the overall democratic process. We have an independent judiciary in Canada, and that is very important to maintain.
However, as I said, Rona Ambrose brought forward a bill to make education mandatory, because some judges just simply do not understand the dynamics that women face against the power of male sexual violence, and that is a massive disproportion. We cannot go into a courtroom and say that both sides are equal sometimes. We have to understand the larger dynamics, which was Rona Ambrose's push for change.
If we look at what happened at St. Anne's residential school, and I think it will be studied in law for years to come, we need to make sure that our system is there and that the judges know the appropriate grounds so that we get better judgments in the end.
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