Lawyers expect about 700 N.W.T. claimants in 'Indian boarding home' settlement

Lawyers handling the settlement of a class-action lawsuit over the operation of boarding homes for Indigenous students expect about 700 claims from the N.W.T.

The claims process opened last month, following a Federal Court-approved $1.9-billion settlement agreement with Ottawa, over the operation of boarding homes for Indigenous students attending public schools between 1951 and 1992.

Class members have until February 2027 to file claims. 

The "Indian Boarding Homes Program" was created by the Government of Canada, and placed children from Indigenous communities into private family homes (usually non-Indigenous) for the purpose of attending school. The program saw an estimated 40,000 Indigenous youth placed in boarding homes across Canada, including in the North.

Doug Lennox, an attorney at Klein Lawyers, the Toronto firm handling the class action since 2018, says that the federal government acknowledges that "bad things happened" during the program.

Lennox says that it all started with four plaintiffs — and that they expect more than 33,000 claimants.

He explains that there are two categories of compensation.

"It starts at $10,000, simply for proving that you were in the program. That is compensation for being cut off from your family and your culture. It can go up from there if you suffered abuse or neglect, reaching up to $200,000," Lennox said.

Lennox says that it will take six to eight months to process each claim.

Gerri Sharpe, originally from Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, was born in 1969 and was enrolled in the boarding homes program. She says she attended Sir John Franklin High School in Yellowknife and stayed in three private homes.

One of the homes she lived in housed 11 other children.

"My first day there, when we all sat down to supper, my reaction was, 'is there a birthday or something, that there are so many children?' And that's when I found out that there were 11 others," Sharpe said.

Sharpe says that many children in the boarding homes program faced similar abuse as in residential schools. She's filed a claim for both her placement and the abuse suffered.

Speaking to CBC News, Sharpe didn't want to talk about everything she experienced at the boarding homes, but said "there were instances that allowed me to be part of this class action lawsuit."

"I don't want to go into too much detail," she said.

She said she found the claims process easier than other similar class actions and suggests other claimants contact the lawyer assigned by Canada to guide them.

Lennox says that families were paid by the Government of Canada to house children, making the boarding home program a source of revenue for many. He also says some parents were in it for the wrong reasons and did not treat the children well.

"There are also parents, frankly, who were predators. And there are instances of Indigenous children reporting to the 'Indian' officer who would place them with the family, telling the government, 'I'm being sexually assaulted,'" Lennox said.

He says that there are archival documents and memos corroborating this.

Lennox expresses concern about the government's inaction in addressing those complaints at the time.