[PEN-L:9695] FW: Secret Govt paper residential schools (fwd)

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Government paper warns of risks of apologizing for residential schools
WENDY COX  July 27, 1998  from Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA (CP) - Government officials were urged two years ago to provide a
compensation package to aboriginal people who suffered in residential
schools as an attempt to control the potentially explosive costs of
lawsuits, an internal document shows. The report, stamped Secret and
obtained by The Canadian Press, compares the pros and cons of forcing
claimants to go to court with offering financial redress to victims. It
concludes that in the long run, compensation would be  cheaper.

"The number of individual claims as well as any negative implications for
the
federal government in defending such actions (lawsuits) would likely be
minimized if a government policy, including some form of redress package,
were adapted," says the 20-page report. The document also warns against
using the word "apology," preferring instead "an acknowledgment or
expression of regret."  "It could be worded in such a fashion so as to not
lay blame on anyone."

Government officials confirmed the report, which is titled simply
Residential
Schools Discussion Paper, was written in late 1995 or early 1996 for Ron
Irwin, then the minister of Indian Affairs. It may also have been prepared
for
the Justice Department.  The report never reached current Indian Affairs
Minister Jane Stewart and the advice in it never formed the basis for
actions she later took, officials say. Earlier this year, Stewart issued a
Statement of Reconciliation, saying the government was "deeply sorry" for
those who suffered the "tragedy" of  physical and sexual abuse at the
schools.

The statement also included a $350-million healing fund.  "It was critical
that the apology meant something to us," said Shawn Tupper,  spokesman for
the minister on the residential schools file. "We can point to (the
$350-million healing fund) and say we're actually doing something
substantive to back it up." The statement has been accepted by national
Chief Phil Fontaine, however other native leaders said at the time that it
wasn't good enough.  But critics who have read the 1996 document say the
federal government has  followed the advice to the letter. They say it's
evidence the statement is not an apology at all but merely an attempt to
control costs. Ovide Mercredi, a former national chief, said the document
shows "the minister didn't follow her heart or her sense of justice." "She
followed legal advice and the advice was to reduce legal liability at all
costs and the government measure is designed to do that." Fontaine was
unavailable for comment.

The document advises that forcing former students to take the government to
court would ensure they would have to prove their claims. As an added
advantage, it would also limit lawsuits, the report states.

<<<<<<< "There is a general disinclination by persons who have suffered
abuse to testify on such a personal and painful matter in a public and
adversarial forum," the report says. >>>>>>>>>>>>>

"A litigation approach may well keep the number of claimants down to a
minimum."

However, going to court would cost the government dearly in money and in
bad press, the report concludes. The author, who is unnamed, recommends a
compensation package instead.  Since the report was written, thousands of
former students have joined class action suits or have filed individual
lawsuits against the federal government. A landmark B.C. court ruling last
month declared for the first time that both the federal government and the
United Church are legally liable for
widespread sexual and physical abuse at a Port Alberni, B.C., school and
ordered them to compensate about 30 former students. A figure for the
compensation has not yet been decided.  The mounting lawsuits are
anticipated in the 1996 report, but the document also cautions that
apologizing is dangerous territory.

"Whatever it is called, the department will want to ensure that the
statement
cannot subsequently be used to establish a cause of action against the Crown
in any particular individual cause," it states. "It would appear that this
government is committed to looking ahead and in these tough economic times,
it would not want to be involved in anything that is too expensive or
linked to the past." Tupper said the department's thinking has evolved
since the report. When
asked at a news conference last January if the statement of reconciliation
was an apology, Stewart responded yes.  "In our view, the statement of
reconciliation is not an acknowledgment of guilt in a court of law," Tupper
said.
It is an acknowledgment of a historic policy and the negative impacts of
that
policy and it is a commitment to do something about it."

However, John McKiggan, a lawyer for about 800 former students at the
Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, said the internal
document reveals the federal government's strategy. "There is an amazing
similarity between the present and suggestions made in the paper," he said.
 "The statement of reconciliation does not apologize for government
actions. It recognizes the pain. It doesn't admit responsibility for that
pain."           © The Canadian Press, 1998



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