Destroy ‘highly personal’ residential school records, NTI says

CANADA
CBC News

Inuit are opposed to the federal government’s position in the Supreme Court case which will decide whether to preserve or destroy “highly personal” accounts of residential school survivors.

The Government of Canada is arguing that the Federal Access and Privacy legislation mandates these records be preserved in national archives.

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, which speaks for Inuit in Canada, says all Independent Assessment Process records should be destroyed, unless an individual survivor opts for theirs to be kept.

The Supreme Court started hearing arguments in the case on Thursday.

“The main issue is whether the 30,000 highly personal and descriptive, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse records by residential school survivors will be destroyed or not,” NTI’s Bruce Oviluk said.

He says the nature of small Northern communities means, even if names were redacted, making these stories public could expose Inuit residential school survivors.

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