Thousands of northern Ontario survivors of boarding home program eligible for compensation

Warning: This story is about survivors of the Indian Boarding homes program and talks about abuse and domestic violence. 

Melissa Ethier and Marilyn Gaudreau squeeze onto a single wide chair, and comfort each other, as they open up about what it was like to be removed from their homes in Mattagami First Nation in 1969.

They joke nervously, calling themselves the M and M's and pre-emptively reach for tissues as they prepare to tell their story.

As teenagers, the federal government sent the two to board with a Kirkland Lake, Ont., family to attend high school there.

The pair, who are cousins, say they've never really talked about the trauma they experienced at the hands of non-Indigenous families; not even to their parents, or children.

They say they didn't even reveal much to their siblings, who were boarded at different homes in the same community.

It simply wasn't talked about, they said, but it's now time to let go of those secrets.  

They want to encourage other survivors of the Indian Boarding Homes program to come forward and apply for compensation. 

Ethier, 73, and Gaudreau, 71, were first placed as teenagers with a young couple that already had two young children of their own in 1969.

They say the husband was loud, drunk and violent toward his wife, and the girls heard fights from where they were huddled in their bedrooms upstairs.

The most hair-raising night was when the man yelled that he was going to burn the house down.

Ethier described how they changed into their clothes and planned an escape route, making sure they could take the other young children with them if the man made good on his threat.

They made it through the night and went to school the next day.

When they got back, the wife told them other arrangements were being made for them.

"I was happy to get out of there, figuring we're going into a better home, but it wasn't any better than the first one," said Gaudreau.

At the next home, they described the new landlady as being very cross.

Gaudreau said they had only oatmeal and water for breakfast and pasta for lunch and dinner for weeks on end.

"You couldn't even go in the fridge to take a fruit or drink," said Gaudreau. "We had to go in our bedroom and stay there. We weren't allowed to watch TV, so we were isolated." 

That isolation, say Ethier and Gaudreau, was profound in a time when there was no internet or cell service.

The two returned to their community for the Christmas holidays, and vowed never to return to Kirkland Lake. Ethier gave up on her dream of becoming a nurse.

"It bothered me a lot, but you know, it's something that I had to let go," she said. "I had to do it for me because I wasn't going back to that kind of life anymore."

The Indian Boarding Homes Program was active between June 1, 1951 and June 30, 1992 and saw the federal government take thousands of Indigenous children across Canada from their homes and force them to board at private homes in other communities for education, paying those families for hosting them.

A class action lawsuit brought by some survivors in 2019 was settled and compensation in the amount of $50 million was agreed upon to recognize the harm of loss of culture and language, as well as other abuses students endured.

Claims opened last August.

William Platt is a lawyer who is helping administer the claims.

The first step, he said, is for survivors to qualify, which they can do by filling out a form online or on paper.

A survivor, once qualified, is eligible for $10,000.

Platt emphasized that even those who feel they were placed in a good home are eligible for compensation, on the grounds that they had no choice in the matter and suffered loss of culture and language,

Survivors who endured additional abuse such as starvation, violence, forced labour and sexual abuse may apply for up to $200,000.

He said it's important for survivors to know that once they qualify, their claims about additional abuse will not be challenged in court. 

He estimates up to 40,000 people may qualify, with thousands of them in northern Ontario.

Platt said there could be 600 to 800 survivors on Manitoulin Island and the surrounding area alone.

Because the program started in the early 1950s, some survivors may no longer be alive, but Platt is encouraging the families to apply on their behalf.

He said it's important that anyone who thinks they may qualify, to reach out because they don't have a list.

"Due to privacy legislation, Canada can't, or won't, be able to share that list with us," he said.

"So we are left with our own devices, which means we reach out to communities where we know there were large segments of children that came over the last 40 years in this program, and asked if we could come into the community and hold in-person sessions." 

At the session in Mattagami First Nation, people, some visibly stressed, paid close attention to a presentation on the claims process.

Dorothy Naveau said it's taken her months to bring herself to apply for compensation and feels like she's being re-traumatized by having to provide details.

"It wasn't a sunny day for us every day, right?" she said.

"We were taken from our homes, out of the security and safety of our community, and then suddenly placed in a place where we didn't feel safe at night, and a lot of times we were just given a bed and a little space in the corner of the basement." 

Mental health support is provided at most information sessions.

Faye Naveau is with the Wabun Tribal Council and kept some sage burning as survivors began submitting their claims.

She counselled some people on coping strategies and offered encouragement to those who struggled with opening up about their experiences.

"You're helping keep secrets that were put on to you by others," she said.

"So you're keeping other peoples' secrets by doing that. And you're carrying that trauma that's not yours to carry. When you give back those ugly gifts, it's freeing and it's releasing and it doesn't take up any more space in your brain."

People who need support can call the Hope for Wellness Team for comfort and emotional assistance, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The toll-free number is 1-855-242-3310 or online at www.hopeforwellness.ca

Because the claims period spans some 40 years, generations of the same family were taken from their communities.

Jennifer Constant is now chief of Mattagami First Nation.

She and her mother were both sent away.

Constant said the first of eight different boarding homes she lived in over four years in Timmins was an overcrowded apartment.

Generations of First Nations youth impacted

Thanks to her mother's advocacy, she said she stayed in some good homes, but knew some students were seen as a commodity.

Even for her, she said the instability interfered with her grades and ate away at her self-esteem.

She said Indigenous students were often picked on and left without anywhere to socialize, particularly difficult for teens at a vulnerable period in their lives, with no families to guide them.

"That breeds that feeling of not being good enough or that they're not charted for success," she said.

"They're not expected to succeed. And for students who then internalize that, that creates a lot of complex issues when really none of that belonged to them, that they were thrust into a situation that created this."

The program ended in 1992 with the federal government no longer involved in relocating students.

While students still must go to Timmins for school, Constant said the First Nation offers the option of daily transportation now, an hour each way.

"The primary goal is that they are home in the evenings, they are sleeping in their own beds and that they are with their family," she said.

Constant herself eventually went on to university and was recently accepted into a program at Harvard.

As for Marilyn Gaudreau and Melissa Ethier, they married and had families of their own, whom they are proud to say graduated from high school, and went to college.

They also made sure that their own refrigerators were never closed to any child who needed food.

"We broke the chain," they said.

The deadline to submit a claim is Feb. 22, 2027.

You can find more information and mental health supports here.

The class action is distinct from the one for residential school and day school survivors.