Press TV – July 24, 2013
A superior court of general jurisdiction in Canada has ordered the government to release millions of documents on its residential school system, which will reveal secrets of abuse and torture of aboriginal children at government-funded schools, Press TV reports.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered the government to hand over the documents to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The Commission has said that the documents will allow the public, researchers and educators to learn more about what happened to the 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children, who were taken from their homes, often against their parents’ will.
“We knew of those records, which talked about the experiments of withholding food from children while they were in residential schools so the government could see what the impact of poor nutrition or malnutrition would be on people,” said Justice Murray Sinclair.
In addition, the documents are believed to reveal evidence of widespread sexual and mental abuse as well as torture of native children living at more than 130 government-funded residential schools.
The residential school system was launched in the 1870s and the last one closed in 1996.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government had initially denied the request, saying it was of no relevance and that it would be too costly.
The documents as well as thousands of statements from former aboriginal students are to be housed by the National Research Center at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.