A lawsuit to recognize the impact of residential schools on Indigenous communities, in connection with the loss of culture and language, has just opened in Federal Court in Vancouver. The lawyers, who represent 325 First Nations, more than half of all First Nations in the country, are seeking compensation for the impacts suffered collectively.
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Residential school survivors have been able, for the most part, to be individually compensated for the trauma experienced in these schools aimed at assimilating them, in particular through the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, in force since 2007. According to the lawyer specializing in Aboriginal law , Me David Schulze, this class action is a logical continuation. “Can collective and cultural losses be compensated in our Canadian legal system? The federal government, in the negotiations, wanted to limit what it paid to what had already been recognized by the courts. We are therefore trying to go further,” he explained.
Many Indigenous communities in Quebec have joined the class action. Among them is the Anicinape Council of Kitcisakik.
Jimmy Papatie, who is a former resident of Saint-Marc-de-Figuery, is one of those who fight to safeguard culture. “It’s as if the heart and spirit of the community has been ripped out. People were in so much pain that the consumption numbed their pain. Then, they no longer went into the woods, the transmission of culture and language no longer took place with their children. I would say that nearly 80% of our young people no longer speak Anicinape. I tell myself that you have to learn at least one word a day!” he confided.
The subpoenaed PM?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, could be summoned to appear in this trial which will stretch until November. If this is the case, they will have to specify statements already issued concerning the Canadian policy of assimilation which, even today, continues to have impacts in the communities.
“We can see the transgenerational impact, five generations are affected. And repairing a people takes a long time. It’s as if Hiroshima had fallen on us. We are beginning to rise slowly with shreds of language and culture. Our survival is not assured as a culture and as a people,” continued Mr. Papatie.
In the event of a judgment in favor of the request, this could mean significant sums that the communities could invest in projects to safeguard and revitalize the language and culture.
Inuit in France for the extradition of a pedophile priest
A delegation of Inuit is in France until September 15 to demand the extradition of Father Joannès Rivoire. The French cleric, an Oblate, is said to have assaulted many Inuit children between 1968 and 1970. The alleged 92-year-old pedophile lives in a retirement home in Lyon and is considered by many to be a symbol of the impunity of religious attackers.
Father Rivoire is the subject of a Canada-wide arrest warrant issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for sexual assaults on minors. Canada has also issued an extradition request. Last spring, the Inuit delegation that went to meet Pope Francis in Rome insisted that the head of the Catholic Church intervene personally in the case.
The six representatives, including Steve Mapsalak, alleged victim of the priest, and Aluki Kotierk, president of the Nunavut Tunngavik organization, are trying to put pressure both on the congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and on French President Emmanuel Macron so that finally, Father Rivoire, returns to Canadian soil to face the crimes he allegedly committed in the Canadian Far North.