Lawsuit on Labrador Residential Schools Postponed, Talks on Settlement Continue

Metro
February 26, 2016

http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2016/02/26/lawsuit-on-labrador-residential-schools-postponed-talks-on-settlement-continue.html

The lawsuit alleging abuse of residential school survivors in Labrador has been postponed as the parties continue to discuss an out-of-court settlement.

A news release from lawyer Ches Crosbie on Friday afternoon says progress has been made, but moving discussions through the federal process is complex.

The lawsuit alleges abuse and cultural losses at residential schools in Labrador.

The roughly 1,200 aboriginal plaintiffs were excluded from then-prime minister Stephen Harper's apology in 2008.

They also didn't receive part of a related compensation package that paid more than $4 billion to former students of aboriginal residential schools across the rest of Canada.

The trial was set to resume Monday, but has been delayed while opposing lawyers continue to meet with a retired judge in a bid to settle the almost eight-year-old case.

Lawyers for the federal government, in response to claims that have not been proven in court, have said Ottawa was in no way responsible for schools that opened before the province joined Confederation in 1949.

Defence documents denied that Newfoundland and Labrador schools were "akin'' to now-defunct institutions under the federal Indian Act that were the subject of the federal Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have countered that, after Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation in 1949, the federal government had the same legal duty to aboriginal students in the province as elsewhere in Canada.