Brown v. Canada: Court Puts Brakes on Aboriginal Class Action
For close to twenty years I have had the privilege of representing Nora Bernard and the survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. I was a member of the steering committee that negotiated the landmark National Indian Residential Schools Class Action settlement and I have had the great honour of helping hundreds of former residential school students in the claims process.
The Residential Schools Class action was the largest class action settlement in Canada, effecting nearly 70,000 aboriginal people across Canada. but even that massive court case hasn’t addressed all of the harms that aboriginal people have suffered as a result of actions of various federal and provincial government actions.
So I have followed with great interest the various claims that have been filed on behalf of aboriginal people across Canada based on issues similar to the loss of language and culture arguments that we pursued in the National Residential School claims.
