Residential school victims file suit

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Fifteen victims of physical and sexual abuse that occurred at the Port Alberni Residential School between 1949 and 1970 have filed a suit for damages in the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

A Jan. 31 press release from the plaintiffs' lawyers, Hutchins Soroka Grant & Paterson, states that the suit is one of the largest ever brought before Canadian courts on behalf of Aboriginal people who have been mistreated in residential schools.

Arthur Henry Plint, 78, was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment a year ago for his crimes against boys aged six to 13 at the school.

The suit names Plint, the United Church of Canada, the minister of Indian Affairs and three former principals of the Port Alberni school-A.E. Caldwell, John Dennis and John Andrews.

The statement of claim specifies that:

"As a result of the breach of fiduciary duty and negligence on the part of the Minister or the Church or both of them, and the breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, assault and battery on the part of Caldwell, Dennis and Andrews, and the breach of fiduciary duty, assault and battery on the part of Plint" each of the plaintiffs "suffered and continues to suffer damages"

Damages claimed by the victims, who now range in age from 37 to 52, include multiple, serious effects of the abuse. Some of the plaintiffs claim as many as 25 kinds of injuries, which include loss of Aboriginal language and culture and family roots, post-traumatic stress disorder, loss of self-esteem, alcohol and drug abuse and addiction, inability to complete education, inability to obtain and sustain employment, sexual trauma, and physical pain and suffering.

Plaintiff Willie Blackwater, a 41-year-old sawmill worker of the Gitsegukla Band of the Gitxsan Nation, said: "We are bringing this court action to call the Government of Canada and the United Church of Canada to account for their responsibility in allowing the horrible wrongs to take place while we were under their authority:

"If Canada and the United Church were prepared to acknowledge their wrong, and to recognize their responsibility and compensate us for the devastation caused to our lives, this court action may not have started.

"We, the victims of Plint, the Residential School System, the United Church and Canada, can no longer waita very important part of our healing is the acknowledgement by Canada and the United Church of their responsibility and their willingness to recognize that they are liable to compensate us for the destruction of our lives that they have caused to us."

Eric Mack, 41, from the Toquat Band of the Nuu-cha-nulth Nation, who is unemployed in Ucluelet, B.C., described their situation.

"We are looking for something to help us through the difficult times," he said. The former 15-year employee of Kennedy Lake Logging Company adds that he has been out of work in the town of 2,600 since 1983 and that he is a poor candidate now for manual labor because of arthritis. About half of the plaintiffs are listed in the court documents as being unemployed.

Mack adds that he attempted to upgrade his education, which ended somewhere around Grade 5, but was unsuccessful. "Every time I tried writing, my hand shakes so much I can't do anything," he said.

The memories of residential school overwhelm him when he puts himself in an educational environment or undertakes tasks he associates with school.

Mack credits the support of his family in getting through the ordeal. He said he gets none from his band:

"They have their own problems," he said, adding that there are few Elders left and they are scattered around the country.

With the threat of having his telephone and cable services cut for non-payment, Mack hopes that some money from the law suit will ease his family's situation. He still has three children at home.

"The lawyer figures it won't even take a year," for the case to be heard, Mack said.

Gilbert Johnson, 42, also hopes that any money the plaintiffs receive as a result of the court ase will be enough to secure the future for his children. He, like some of the other plaintiffs who spoke to Windspeaker, is worried about not being able to provide for his family because of his inability to complete his education and for other reasons cited in the statement of claim.

"No amount of money will be enough to make me forget what happened to me," Johnson said.

David Patterson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said they cannot yet put a dollar figure on the damages sought. He said that the plaintiffs are all undergoing psychological testing and other assessment, in order to be able to quantify the damage done to each man.

Typical of the kinds of settlements being reached in recent times is one in Kingston, Ont., in which 22 people shared an approximate $2.1-million settlement, Patterson said.

He said he is aware that similar atrocities have occurred in non-Native institutions. The difference is that, in white, middle-class institutions, somebody would find out about the abuse, and kick the school officials out, but in Native residential schools, orphanages or training schools, nobody in mainstream society cared about these kids to begin with, Patterson said.