A discrimination complaint was heard against Prince George RCMP in this gym in Burns Lake, B.C.. Photo: APTN file
A group of day school survivors is criticizing the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for missing the deadline to deliver a decision on their long-awaited discrimination complaint against the Prince George RCMP.
“I was, of course, upset,” said Dorothy Williams, one of six survivors from Burns Lake and Lake Babine First Nations in northern B.C. who complained to the Tribunal in 2018, about the latest delay.
“Why are they prolonging this? It’s like an open wound that is not healing.”
The Tribunal announced last week that member Colleen Harrington would need more time to complete her decision in Woodgate et al v RCMP, and miss the Jan. 20 deadline.
In an email, the Tribunal said Harrington couldn’t meet the six-month time period set out in the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure.
“She continues to work on the decision and will issue it in due course,” the email said. “She appreciates your patience.”
Read More: Witness calls teacher a ‘muscle guy’ at former Catholic day school in northern B.C.
Harrington heard months of testimony in 2023 from 23 witnesses about the 2012 RCMP investigation into allegations of historical physical abuse against a former day school teacher that sparked the complaint.
The teacher cannot be named under a publication ban and is referred to as “A. B.” in the case documents.
When the RCMP wrapped up its investigation in 2013 without interviewing all of the survivors, employing interpreters to help some survivors make statements in their own language, and not laying charges, the group cried foul.
The survivors filed a human rights complaint alleging systemic racism against First Nations people that was approved in June 2018.
The survivors attended Immaculata Roman Catholic Elementary School in Burns Lake, about 220 kilometres from Prince George, in the late 1960s. They claim A. B. physically and verbally abused them.
When the year-long RCMP investigation didn’t result in charges, the group claimed the police favored the non-Indigenous teacher.
Read More: Human rights tribunal into complaint against RCMP underway in Burns Lake, B.C.
They alleged the RCMP’s “traditional investigative methods fail to meet the needs of Indigenous victims … and are executed with biased attitudes.”
The Commission conducted its own investigation and asked the tribunal in 2020 to hold a public hearing and gather its own evidence.
But the hearing was repeatedly rescheduled and some of the survivors and a witness on their behalf died during the process – some without being able to testify.
Williams, whose sister Emma Williams was among those who died, is fed up with the delays.
“It’s been a long journey for us,” she said in an interview. “Three survivors and a witness have died.
“I don’t understand why this decision is taking them forever.”
