CANADA
CBC News
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett says her department will look into the cases of about 1,000 residential school students who have been disqualified for compensation by a technicality.
The minister made the commitment Wednesday in the House of Commons after the federal Liberal government came under fire during question period.
“We have learned that 1,000 victims of sexual and physical abuse from the residential schools had their cases thrown out on a flimsy legal technicality, which is that children who were abused in institutions run by the government are not, somehow, eligible for compensation by the government,” NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus said in question period.
“This travesty was conjured up in the Department of Justice.”
The issue centres on an administrative split created when the federal government took over the operation of some residential schools and left other institutions in the control of religious leaders.
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