First Nations student deaths inquest in Thunder Bay off to rocky start

A long-awaited inquest into the deaths of seven First Nations students from northern Ontario began on a rough note Monday morning.

Proceedings were supposed to begin at 9:30 a.m. but were stalled for nearly an hour because there was not enough space in the courtroom to accommodate families.

The room assigned for the proceedings is one of the smallest in Thunder Bay's recently built court house. There were only 10 seats available for family members of the seven students, all of whom have waited years and travelled hundreds of kilometres to hear the details of how their children died.

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• Ontario calls joint inquest in aboriginal student deaths

The seven students, aged 15 to 21, left their remote communities between 2000 and 2011 to pursue high school education in the city.

Five  are believed to have drowned, one suffered an overdose, and the cause of death for another remains a mystery. The circumstances surrounding the deaths have never been fully investigated.

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), which had pressed for the inquest for years, called the room assignment a continuing injustice to the families affected.

"When you make it this difficult on people who are already under tremendous tensions and anxieties, what you are doing in my view is tremendous unnecessary damage," said NAN's lawyer, Julian Falconer.

"Imagine how hard it will be now to fight just to get proper recommendations and get proper protections for kids. I mean if this is emblematic of the journey, it is going to be extraordinarily difficult."

Lawyers and supporters scoured the courthouse Monday morning looking for extra chairs to be squeezed into the tiny courtroom. NAN staff wedged empty take-out coffee cups underneath courtroom doors to hold them open, providing more viewing space in the vestibule.

Christa Big Canoe, the legal advocacy director for Aboriginal Legal Services in Toronto who is representing six of the seven families involved in the inquest, told CBC News that while the families are relieved the inquest has started they feel they haven't been taken seriously.

"They feel like an afterthought. It is frustrating from their perspective," Big Canoe said.

"This has been in the making for some time and to find out the day it is starting that they are in a very small space, [it shows] there wasn't enough attention paid to the families needs in this particular process," she said.

The coroner's office confirmed the inquest will move to one of largest court rooms in the building starting Tuesday. That room will be made available until at least the beginning of November.

The inquest will consist of three phases and is expected to last six months, hearing from more than 100 witnesses. Four women and one man comprise the jury.