Former students from the Saint Anne’s Indian residential school located in Fort Albany, Ontario, are hoping to resolve their legal matters through mediation with the federal government.  According to the survivors, the school used a homemade electric chair for discipline. 

According to the survivors, lawyers for the government suppressed and denied evidence alleging widespread abuse at the school.  They claim the government played “legal hardball” during the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings, which were supposed to be used to determine how much compensation the abuse survivors would receive.

A spokesperson for the survivors said they are “… dealing with a fundamental breach of rights,” and that the government “… suppressed all that evidence and presented a lie in those hearings…” Now their goal is to shame the government and force them to do the right thing.

The group is asking that a retired judge oversee the mediation process.

To date, the government has avoided mediation to settle the claims, despite claiming to be committed to finding fair ways to address the cases.  At one point in the process during the hearings, the government claimed there was no documented proof of sexual abuse or student-on-student abuse at the school.

One student, who attended the school was she was aged seven, had to spend a year in a Toronto hospital recovering from the burns she suffered in a house fire at the school.  She was unable to prove the school had known about her abuse, she alleges, which was suffered at the hands of another student.  She has since reopened a new case.