March 28th, 2024

Law firm seeks to launch class action suit over residential schools


By Tim Kalinowski on July 9, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

The Guardian Law Group is seeking to launch a class action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of Indigenous families who lost loved ones at residential schools.
“There has already been a class action regarding Indian Residential Schools,” explains Guardian Law attorney Mathew Farrell. “That claim was about survivors. This claim is about those that died. The claim is for the families of these children. They were not told of those deaths, there was no transparency about how they died, and if they tried to inquire then they were cowed, brow-beaten into silence by an institution they had feared since they themselves were children.”
Despite these revelations of children buried at residential schools in unmarked graves coming out during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceedings between 2008 and 2015, Farrell says recent discoveries of hundreds of graves at several former residential schools has added impetus to launching the class action at this time.
“Until these bodies were found nobody really took these allegations seriously, and nobody was listening to people,” he says. “In a lot of instances individuals didn’t even know definitively those family members had likely died. Often they were told ‘they ran away.’ Or ‘we don’t know where they are.’ This (recent revelation) has kind of pulled the bandage off the wound.
“It is a shame action with respect to this wasn’t taken sooner,” Farrell states, “but I think in a lot of ways this is something that has just come out at this point.”
Farrell was also asked why the federal government was the correct target of the lawsuit given many of the residential schools in question were run by religious orders who have, in many cases, failed to disclose the records as to how and when these children died to their families?
Farrell agrees there is more than enough blame to go around, but cites the previous class action which the federal government settled with residential school survivors which obligated it to disclose these records.
“The government has had years to provide records of who went to these schools, and what happened to them,” Farrell says. “And they were obliged to do that under the previous settlement. That hasn’t happened, and it is becoming clear that we will never know how many of these children died wrongfully. It is true, in many cases, it was a member of a church who did the wrongful act, and there was abuse, and many of those abuses happened at the hands of members of the clergy– we know those abuses occurred.
“So this claim is about justice for the families of the children that died from that abuse,” he acknowlegdes, “but it is also about the cover-up. The government was the one who was supposed to be collecting these records and making sure that these people were informed. And the government has tried to bury the evidence of a cultural genocide beneath the bodies of children.”
Those wishing more information about this class action lawsuit can call Guardian Law Group at 403-457-7778 or visit the firm’s website at http://www.guardian.law.

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pursuit diver

Ambulance chasers that will end up making the most money from this!
Congratulations, you just put the final nail into Reconciliation! Canadians have made apologies and paid billions since 1996, but it appears this continues to surface every 10 years! The events were tragic and horrific, but they are using it as a money tree, shaking it every 10-15 years. Remember 2006 and 2016? Billions have been paid out, but here we are again! Trudeau has brought this on! Mr. Apology who opens the taxpayer’s wallets to pour out billions to buy votes!
Canadians have had enough! If they were truly concerned about their people, why do they do nothing as their young people die from gangs, drugs and prostitution in their communities and our cities! It is all about the money and there is no money in saving there young people, who in many cases were ‘banished’ from their communities and ended up on our streets to die!
You don’t get Reconciliation by holding a gun to the heads of those that spend over $16 billion to support you annually with another $18 billion just announced to combat poverty, in this election year as it appears to be, while demanding Reconciliation!
That word should be removed from this act of robbery, because this has nothing to do with reconciling. We have been held hostage long enough!
I guess it is time we started mounting lawsuits for all the deaths of the early settlers that were raped, murdered and tortured in the mid to late 1800’s. They also were focused on a race, the Europeans! Is that not genocide?
Do you see how bizarre this is?
We have approached this topic many times and multiple apologies were made and billions paid out! When people see all of their services been slashed to pay for the billions this PM has blown to buy votes to keep power, they will turn, like rapid dogs and their anger will rise up! We are already seeing the anger from white supremist groups and that is only going to destroy this country!
Reconciliation is dead! Your actions have proven that there are irreconciliable differences and the calls to end the Indian Act and all the treaty monies and supports to stop, will only get stronger and louder!
You demand we respect you, you demand we accept you, you demand we pay for your healthcare, you demand we pay for your housing, you demand we pay for your interpretive centers that attack us and accuse us, you demand we give you more money, while you shut down major projects that help pay for all those demands!
You will bring on darkness that has not been seen in this country, anger that will rise up and say we have had enough of you holding guns to our heads all the time! Canada is over 34 million people and you are about 1.4 million, yet you want it all!
Canadians have tried many times to find forgiveness for the past you keep bringing up, but you continue to spit in our faces!
We are not the same people that committed those sins 100 years ago, no more than you are the same people that scalped, murdered and raped the early settlers! You have pushed this beyond reason!
It was the government and the church who committed these sins that were, for the most part, the most serious being committed in the first 30 years of these schools operating. There were no cell phones, few telephones, no TV’s, no computers, etc., people were just not aware of the atrocities, yet you hold us all accountable!
That in itself is a form of racism, because we are European or as you say, colonialists, we are guilty and must pay!
You will only make the situation worse!

Last edited 2 years ago by pursuit diver