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Residential school survivors fighting Ottawa over access to police records

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Edmund Metatawabin, 66, a survivor of St. Anne\'s residential school in Fort Albany, Ont., is seen outside Osgoode Hall in Toronto on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. Metatawabin remembers being placed in an electric chair at the school. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

TORONTO, Cananda – Survivors of a notorious Indian residential school in northern Ontario are in court in Toronto today fighting the federal government for access to documents.

The survivors accuse Ottawa of thwarting their attempts to win compensation by hiding thousands of pages of documentary evidence.

The records are from a provincial police investigation into St. Anne’s in Fort Albany.

The police probe in the 1990s turned up evidence of horrific abuse, including use of an electric chair and led to criminal convictions.

The federal government has maintained it has no authority to turn over the police materials.

Hundreds of aboriginal children from remote James Bay communities were sent to the school from 1904 to 1976.

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The Canadian Press

The Canadian Press is Canada's trusted news source and leader in providing real-time, bilingual multimedia stories across print, broadcast and digital platforms.

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