Cdn abuse records: privacy trumps institutional accountability, history

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Cdn abuse records: privacy trumps institutional accountability, history

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1margd
okt 10, 2017, 8:40 am

The Canadian Supreme Court rules that testimony of those abused in residential schools should be destroyed unless survivor permits their being archived, and even then, identifying info on others (including perpetrators) will be destroyed. The Canadian Government, committed to compensation for abuses, argued that the reports should be preserved for history and to allow "analysis of the system, and the churches and the government". Sounds like they may have 15 years to do such analysis(?) Authorized and funded by the Cdn Govt, the schools were run by churches including Anglican, Catholic, and United. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system)

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Indigenous residential school records can be destroyed, Supreme Court rules
Unanimous decision finds survivors believed their personal accounts were meant to be confidential
Kathleen Harris | Oct 06, 2017

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that thousands of sensitive records pertaining to abuses at Indigenous residential schools are confidential and should be destroyed.

In a unanimous decision released Friday, the top court said the collection of accounts for independent compensation assessment was meant to be a "confidential and private process" and that "claimants and alleged perpetrators relied on the confidentiality assurance."

The 38,000 accounts will be retained for a 15-year period, during which time survivors can choose to have their records preserved.

Failing that, the documents will be destroyed.

The recollections were gathered as part of the federal government's 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement that was to promote healing, education, truth and reconciliation, and commemoration by, in part, financially compensating former students.

There were two types of compensation; one based on the amount of time spent at the schools ($10,000 for the first year and $3,000 for each year after) and a second based on abuse that resulted in serious psychological consequences, claimed through the independent assessment process.

Applications required survivors to provide "the most private and most intimate personal information" and each person attending the hearing was required to sign a confidentiality agreement.

...The federal government had fought to retain the records for historical purposes under the Library and Archives Canada.

"We have a whole chapter of our history where the scholarly work that was to be done at the Centre for Truth and Reconciliation … to look at the systemic problems that really are about outlining that chapter, who knew, who did what, that so far in the TRC process we've only still got the transactional piece with individuals. That analysis of the system, and the churches and the government has not yet been done."

...Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett...suggested the documents could have been "anonymized" to protect individual privacy.

But Dan Shapiro, chief adjudicator of the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, said that removing identifying information would not be enough to protect the privacy of those who shared their painful stories. Making public the information even without names would be an "appropriation of their experiences," he said.

...For those who choose to preserve their records, identifying information about others in the documents, including names of perpetrators, will be removed. Materials could be made public immediately.

...The case has divided Indigenous groups. Some believe the records should be preserved as a record of a dark chapter in Canada's history, while others believe the sensitive recollections should be destroyed to avoid further harm to descendents of victims.

From the 1860s to the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children were required to attend residential schools run by religious organizations and funded by the federal government. Thousands of them were physically, emotionally and sexually abused.

Accounts of abuse ranged from "the monstrous to the humiliating, and of harms ranging from the devastating to the debilitating," the ruling reads.

Compensation was based on a spectrum of harm, ranging from fondling and kissing to repeated anal or vaginal penetration with an object, and the resulting impact ranging from anxiety and nightmares to personality disorders, pregnancy and suicidal tendencies...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/indian-residential-schools-records-supreme-court...

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...In 2008, the Conservative government in power apologized for the residential program as part of a settlement of a class action that also included paying 1.6 billion Canadian dollars to survivors of the system. The settlement created a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which produced a long list of recommendations, most of which Mr. Trudeau has promised to implement....

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/world/canada/indigenous-forced-adoption-sixti...

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