<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">"He was beaten when he spoke his native language instead of English, sometimes with a broken conveyor belt, in a cycle of abuse that continued until he left at 17."<BR>
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040817/CBAS<BR>
CHOOLS17/TPNational/TopStories<BR>
Lawyers praised for support of native survivors<BR>
By KIM LUNMAN<BR>
Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - Page A5 <BR>
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Ray Mason had never taken a bus until one mysteriously pulled up at his<BR>
door on the Peguis First Nation at dawn to collect the frightened<BR>
seven-year-old. He still remembers watching his Manitoba reserve disappear<BR>
in the distance through the rear-view mirror. "My mother was crying and<BR>
saying, 'I hope he comes back.' The Indian agent said, 'Don't worry; he'll<BR>
be back.' " Mr. Mason, who is among thousands of survivors of residential<BR>
schools seeking compensation from the federal government, spent the next 10<BR>
years of his life bouncing from one school to another. He was beaten when<BR>
he spoke his native language instead of English, sometimes with a broken<BR>
conveyor belt, in a cycle of abuse that continued until he left at 17.<BR>
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"It's a horrible thing," said Mr. Mason, chairman of the Spirit Wind<BR>
Association representing about 5,000 residential school survivors in<BR>
Manitoba. "We suffered psychological and mental torture." He commended the<BR>
Canadian Bar Association yesterday for passing a resolution at its annual<BR>
meeting in Winnipeg calling on the federal government to compensate all<BR>
surviving victims of residential schools. As many as 90,000 of the<BR>
survivors are estimated to be still alive. "The government should realize<BR>
we were all in it together," said Mr. Mason, 57. "Why does the Canadian<BR>
government have to take us to court to see what they've done to us?"<BR>
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"We're saying that's not fair," said Darcy Merkur, one of the lawyers<BR>
representing survivors in a national class action lawsuit involving 19 law<BR>
firms. "This was institutional child abuse. They were basically scarred for<BR>
life." Mr. Merkur said former students should be entitled to compensation<BR>
packages in the range of $20,000 to $40,000. Ottawa apologized six years<BR>
ago for abuses in the residential schools, which were owned by the<BR>
government but run by churches. Few claims have been settled, however. <BR>
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The government's $1.7-billion dispute settlement plan, which is designed to<BR>
compensate an estimated 15 per cent of all residential school survivors,<BR>
has been criticized by native leaders, victims and their lawyers. The plan<BR>
aims to settle over 12,000 lawsuits launched by former students. So far,<BR>
more than 1,250 settlements have been reached, at a cost of $71-million to<BR>
the federal government. <BR>
<BR>
Eric Pelletier, a spokesman for the Office of Indian Residential Schools<BR>
Resolution, said the current program is addressing a sad chapter in<BR>
Canada's history as best it can. "We have been looking at differentresponses and still think our current program is the best response," he<BR>
said. The federal plan puts cases before adjudicators, with Ottawa covering<BR>
70 per cent of proven damages for physical and sexual abuse. But plaintiffs<BR>
must sign away their future right to sue for language and cultural losses.<BR>
The remainder of the settlement must be collected from churches that ran<BR>
the schools.<BR>
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Churches ran residential schools in partnership with Ottawa until most were<BR>
closed in the 1970s. The last school shut its doors in 1996. In February,<BR>
Ottawa announced it was appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn a B.C.<BR>
ruling that held the federal government 100-per-cent liable for native<BR>
residential school settlements in that province. The B.C. Court of Appeal<BR>
last year overturned a 1998 ruling that made the United Church partly<BR>
liable for abuse at a former residential school in Port Alberni.<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Mason's painful memories followed him on a recent visit to one of his<BR>
former schools. "It was like a horrible dream," he said. "I thought 'My<BR>
God, I lived in this box for how many years? Just standing there. It was so<BR>
gray looking. Dead."</FONT></HTML>