Home for Colored Children money to be handled prudently: Lawyer
Ray Wagner says process will be nothing like scandal-plagued system used in Shelburne in 90s
A lawyer for former residents of a Nova Scotia orphanage says a $29-million plan to compensate them for alleged child abuse will be handled prudently.
Ray Wagner says the compensation process in the Home for Colored Children case will be nothing like the scandal-plagued system used for former residents of the Shelburne School for Boys in the 1990s.
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In that case, money was provided in cases that turned out to be bogus claims of physical and sexual abuse.
In the end, about 1,200 people made abuse allegations, the majority of them false.
Wagner said problems with the Shelburne plan first arose when outside lawyers were brought in to adjudicate claims without speaking to claimants.
He says the former residents of the Home for Colored Children orphanage — which was mainly for black children — will deal with local facilitators and evaluators who have close ties to the province's black community.
Wagner says people in the community are not going to want to see a bunch of frauds sullying the reputation of residents who are legitimately entitled to compensation.