Hi Everyone!
I know it has been a VERY long time since I blogged on this site. My apologies. As I am the director, one of the producers AND the editor on the first film - "In Jesus' Name," - in the (now) Erasing Cultural Genocide series, all of my time it seems has been committed to completing this documentary. It was decided last summer to create more than one film as many people still do not comprehend the depth, breadth and severity of abuses at Canada's residential school. So before we get into today's politics of survival too much, we felt that Canadians and others around the world still need to be informed about the human rights abuses of the past, despite the great works of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That said, we are please to announce that the Premiere Public Screening of "In Jesus' Name" (an MFA Qualifying Screening) will be at the Bloor HotDocs Cinema in Toronto on WEDNESDAY JUNE 7TH, at 6:45 pm. We will be opening with traditional ceremony and healers will be present to support residential school Survivors and their kin. This film is part of a film festival, DocNow 2017, created and organized by this year's graduating class of Ryerson's Documentary Media Masters program (see: docnow.ca). We encourage everyone to stay for all of the films that will be airing that evening as these really are STELLAR documentaries created by fully engaged emerging documentary artists. And the event is FREE!!!! Everyone involved in the making of this film sincerely hopes that you will come out and bring others with you. Keep in mind that the content of the film is MATURE (16+ years of age). Miigwetch, Sue
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Hi Everyone:
Last week's case conference at Osgoode Hall in Toronto was an eye-opener again to just how insidious the Canadian government continues to be when it comes to being 'just' toward residential school Survivors. What came to light is that the Canadian government has more, more, more documents that were not brought into the Independent Assessment Process but could have been. These are testimonials from Survivors who were brave enough to write down their stories in the early to mid-1990s....over 700 testimonials that would - without question - corroborate the 'stories' of Survivors who are engaged in compensatory hearings at the Independent Assessment Process. These testimonies from the Survivors are said to be damning with respect to treatment of the children at this school that was a house a horrors for so many. Had these documents been willingly submitted in 2007 by a government committed - TRULY committed - to Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, then St. Anne's Survivors' claims would likely not have been denied and Survivors would have been under-compensated for the abuses they endured over a number of years. In short, even under the 'leadership' of prime minister Justin Trudeau, these behaviours by the Department of 'Justice' equate to obstruction of justice. There can be no reconciliation with a government that continues to hide what went on at the residential schools. If Prime Minister Trudeau is to hold true to his word about actively reconciling the Canadian government with indigenous issues in Canada, then he had better address this obstruction of justice sooner rather than later. The Survivors deserve this deep level of respect. ALL DOCUMENTS - including ALL medical records - should have been brought into the IAP. These too, are buried it seems. How do we hold the Canadian government to account? Enough is enough! Sue The good people from the James Bay coastline travelled a long way to reach the Court and to attend this hearing about their lives and their families and communities. St. Anne's had pedophiles that preyed on the children, and abusers who would beat ill children to force them to eat their own vomit, and the abusers built a home made electric chair to strap in and electrocute children, sometimes as punishment and sometimes to "entertain" the adults who would laugh at the suffering of the children. All aboriginal children were taken from their parents and forced to attend IRS' under federal laws. This Indian Residential School was operated by the federal government and the Catholic church in Fort Albany from 1903 until 1976. In 1992, Edmund Metatawabin and other leaders in the region organized the Keykaywin Conference to address the suffering of the people in the region and to encourage people to end their silence about the terrible sexual and physical abuse they suffered as children at St. Anne's. They were looking for cultural and health support, as well as recognition by federal and church officials that Parents and grandparents were blocked from entering the school and would be thrown in jail and denied treaty rights if their children did not attend. 30 people testified to a closed panel at the Keykaywin Conference about the abuse. Chief Metatawabin was mandated by the elders to involve the police about these crimes that had been committed against children. From 1992 until 1997, Metatawabin and other leaders asked the survivors to trust the justice system and tell their stories. The OPP separately and confidentially gathered the stories and obtained signed statements from over 700 former students from St. Anne's about the widespread sexual and physical abuse that happened to them as children. From 1997 until 1999, there were charges laid and criminal proceedings against 8 supervisors still alive/found by the OPP. From 2000 to 2004, the federal lawyers and church officials sat across the table from Edmund Metatawabin and 100+ survivors in a "pilot ADR" project that resulted in nothing. From 2000 to 2005, about 160 former students used the regular civil justice system out of the Cochrane courthouse to sue for the sexual and physical abuse. In 2003, the federal lawyers brought a motion to the Court to obtain access to the entire OPP investigation file, which the Court granted on August 1, 2003. So, by 2003, the federal lawyers had the stories of about 1000 former students about the details of abuse they suffered as children and the knowledge/lack of reasonable steps by church and federal officials to stop the abuse. The story of one survivor about the horrific abuse of the child may sound "unbelievable" on its own, but when heard in the context of 1000 former students who gave similar fact evidence, the truth is obvious. In May 2006, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement was signed for all survivors across Canada. That Agreement included the apology from then Prime Minister Harper, Common Experience Payment, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, mental health support and the IAP process. The IAP process is private and confidential, with every person who was sexually or physically abused (defined types of serious physical abuse only) filing an application for compensation. The federal government is a defendant in each IAP hearing. Adjudicators are supposed to have full advance disclosure of everything the federal and church officials know about abuse at the school before each survivor comes in to testify under oath.
In this IAP private and confidential legal system, the survivor, if believed, is paid for the one worst incident of abuse that happened to him/her as an residential school student, and for the harms that flowed from the abuse. (The long list of possible harms flowing from child abuse is agreed upon in the settlement agreement). What was discovered in 2013, was that the federal officials had filed none of the evidence of the 1000 former students, that was already in the possession of federal officials. The evidence was not filed for the IAP adjudicators to review, and it was also not sent to the Truth and Reconcilation Commission (TRC). In 2014, the Court ordered the federal government to produce all this evidence to the IAP and the TRC, but by that time, there had been hundreds of cases already heard without proper disclosure by federal officials. In some IAP cases, survivors were believed by the adjudicators and were paid the appropriate compensation, even though all the similar fact evidence had not been disclosed. But some claims were denied, because one former student testifying by himself/herself about the horrific abuse going on at the school, are not believed. One story out of context seems unbelievable, but in the context of the evidence given by 1000 former students, it clearly is true. Worse yet, despite Court orders in 2014 and 2015, federal officials are still not filing all the evidence, and some claims have been denied. Because it is a private and confidential court system, there is no way for St. Anne's survivors association or leaders to find out who has suffered again, with miscarriages of justice due to this non-disclosure. People are suffering on their own and some are trying to take their own lives, so despondent at not being believed. By 2016, the IAP is shutting down and Edmund Metatawabin and leaders in the region want a neutral reviewer to look at all the evidence of 1000 former students collected by the operations of the Ontario justice system from 1992 until 2005, and determine which survivors deserve a re-hearing, given all this similar fact evidence. They want the federal lawyers to stop arguing that all this similar fact evidence is inadmissible and cannot be relied upon by adjudicators, despite corroborating the horrific abuse stories being considered. Metatawabin and St. Anne's survivors also want funding for cultural and mental health support to be given, because had all this evidence about the widespread abuse been disclosed by federal officials since 2006 (when the settlement agreement was signed), the high need for cultural and health support for survivors and their families, in the remote areas along James Bay, would have been known. Metatawabin, leaders and health support workers in the region have developed and run their own programs that are working, but funding is needed to keep the programs going and expanding. Leaders and survivors from the region have given evidence that training/employment of local people who live and work in the communities themselves is the way to heal and change life for the current children. Flying out a survivor to a city to get therapy, only to be returned to the same previous environment, is an intermediate, not a long term solution. Aboriginal self-determined cultural and health recovery is needed following such widespread sexual and physical abuse of children at St. Anne's. What will our justice system do, to address breach of the Settlement Agreement by federal officials, violating the rights of the very same people who were abused as children? We do not know yet. The Court in 206/2007 promised to enforce the settlement agreement for aboriginal Canadians, including against the federal government, the main defendant. This Judge, Mr. Justice Perell, found a miscarriage of justice for one IAP claimant in July 2016, but the federal lawyers appealed his decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Last week, the Court of Appeal granted the appeal to Canada, but the legal reasons and processes are not yet written. The powers and jurisdiction of This Judge and the IAP adjudicators to deal with miscarriages of justice are therefore unknown at this moment. When we get that decision from the Court of Appeal, The Court will hear from St. Anne's survivors for at least one more step. Is there standing and what remedies, if any, can the court provide? The federal government is challenging Edmund Metatawabin that he does not have "Standing" to seek remedies for St. Anne's survivors. The federal government refuses to identify survivors whose stories may be believed with all this new similar fact evidence. The federal government is saying there are no penalties for withholding all this similar fact evidence, in breach of the settlement agreement, from 2006 until this last year. Yesterday, the Court ruled that no one can threaten to seek their legal costs against Edmund Metatawabin personally or any St. Anne's survivor for this next step. We hope to return to the Court on March 24, 2017. The Judge also indicated he is considering having the hearing in Northern Ontario, so that St. Anne's survivors have some chance to attend the public hearing without transportation costs keeping them from their own court hearing. That’s all for now. I apologize for taking so long to break the silence but I have been very busy editing the first of two films, a collaboration between myself, Edmund Metatawabin, and some brave Survivors of St. Anne's Residential School. The documentary film (a student film for the moment) will officially launch in June 2017, in Toronto at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. No admission will be charged, so I hope that MANY of you can come! Keep your eyes and ears open for the launch date of 'In Jesus' Name'.
Miigwetch, Sue Enberg SURVIVORS OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS SHOULD RETAIN THE RIGHTS TO THEIR TESTIMONIES
I have just received an email from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office about the petition I started last month. He will NOT be responding. He has delegated this issue to Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. Should I receive a form letter response back, that will NOT be acceptable. I recently received notice of the following:
Press Conference TOMORROW: ALL ARE WELCOME. The bigger the presence, the bigger the impact. When : Wednesday June 29 at 11 am., Where : In front of 175 Main Street, Ottawa, ON Who : Inuit elder Piita Irnik, residential school survivor and Lieve Halsberghe, Belgian Human Right Activist Why: It is inappropriate that Oblates of Mary Immaculate are celebrating bicentenary, when they are hiding both perpetrators and truth from their victims of child sexual abuse Visual : Lifeline in photographs of Marius Tungilik, deceased victim of fugitive Oblate Joannes Rivoire, for whom there is an RCMP arrest warrant From the Yukon to Nova Scotia, in Canada, the Oblates ran over 60 % of the residential schools. The most notorious Oblate residential school with regards to child abuse, was St. Anne's in Fort Albany Ontario.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the schools were no less than a "cultural genocide". In many schools and orphanages in the US rampant abuse by Oblate brothers and priests and some lay people who worked under their supervision have also caused deep trauma in entire communities. The Oblates are not willing to reveal the truth about what happened, a truth that is essential for the healing of the survivors and their families and the families of the many that died as a consequence of severe trauma. Instead, the Oblates, and there expensive lawyers, are fiercely fighting those extremely brave victims who dare to speak up about what has happened. They are spending many millions in court cases trying to prevent justice from happening. They refuse to hand over the documents that would make justice possible and hide the perpetrators in others countries. Joannis Rivoire, omi, is wanted by the RCMP since 1998 for sexual violence of minors in Nunavut. The warrant is still valid. But he has been living in a posh monastery in France, enjoying the occasional hunt. One of his victims, Inuit leader Marius Tungilik, was haunted by this man his whole life, ever since Rivoire abused him as a young boy. Marius could not live with the pain any longer. He passed away in 2012. In view of this all, we want to protest against the festivities of this Oblates in this year of their bicentennial. It is inappropriate to celebrate and it is inappropriate to claim "200 years of selfless service to the poor and the most abandoned", as they do on youtube! Contact for texting : +32 475 910 918 (Lieve Halsberghe) To learn more about me, please read : The woman who took on the church, and won - Nunatsiaq News In August of 2015, when visiting Fort Albany First Nation, some of the Survivors brought to my attention that they had unanesthitized medical procedures performed on their backs that left a series of 8 or 9 scars (4-5 on either side of the spine); I have now documented these scars. The children were never informed as to what was being done to them.
There is a great concern that the Canadian government collaborated with researchers during the Cold War, researchers who needed human 'subjects' for their research. As all indigenous people were considered expendable by the Canadian government, and considering that a controlled study could be done due to the confinement and isolation of the children, these small bodies provided 'ideal' sites for such studies. If there are any other St. Anne's survivors who have this pattern of scarring on their backs, please contact me by going to the Contact Us page of this website. See below for an illustration of the scarring pattern found on the backs of St. Anne's Survivors. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE!!!
SURVIVORS OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AND SOCIALLY ACTIVE CANADIANS, if there was ever a time for Unity and a National Protest, it is now. READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE: The Canadian government once again is attempting to erase genocide from Canada's history!!!! THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN. If you have provided testimony in the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), contact the IAP this week to secure a copy of your transcript! The government must not have control over indigenous truths and history!!! HOW TO SECURE A COPY OF YOUR TRANSCRIPT: Claimants may request a transcript of their testimony through their lawyer or support officer, or by contacting the Secretariat: Mail: Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, 2010 12th Avenue, 9th Floor Regina, SK S4P 0M3 Fax: (306) 790-4635 Email: [email protected] It usually takes two to three months to receive a transcript. - See more at: http://www.iap-pei.ca/records/main-eng.php… https://www.thestar.com/…/residential-school-abuse-victims-… Hi Everyone:
Today an article about the film was published in the Ryerson Today newspaper (16 June 2016). It is good that this project is getting attention even prior to being completed. We are now in post-production and our hope is to have at least two versions ready by next spring/summer to launch internationally. Check out the article: www.ryerson.ca/news/news/General_Public/20160616-acknowledging-cultural-genocide.html Thanks to a GREAT CREW! Co-producer Edmund Metatawabin Director of Photography Ilan Waldman, Sound Recordist Andrew Leonard, Executive Producer Tim Wolochatiuk. Second camera unit Reil Munro and behind the scenes, Linda Lundström and my niece, Tabitha Viscontas. There is light at the end of this tunnel! Sue |
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