Michael Swinwood, the lawyer for the Lac La Ronge Indian band. Photo by Manfred Joehnck
There has been another delay in a long legal fight for compensation for former students of the Timber Bay Children’s Home and School near Montreal Lake.
Friday morning, Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeals adjourned the case for several months to allow lawyers to make written submissions on an application for new evidence.
The motion was raised by Michael Swinwood, the lawyer for the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. He says the federal government withheld documents that could be helpful to his case.
“In an abundance of caution, we just want to be assured that we have seen all the documents that pertain to Timber Bay,” he said. “This is particularly crucial, given there was a fire at Lac La Ronge that destroyed all their education records so immediately it put us behind the eight ball when it came to trying to put this case together.”
Swinwood says he has already received more than 1,700 documents, but he says he wants to be sure he has everything relevant to the case as he prepares the appeal.
Students at the school were excluded from the federal compensation package for residential school survivors. While the school was government-funded, lawyers for Aboriginal Affairs say it was not government-run and the students were not forced to attend.
It will take lawyers for both sides several months to put together written arguments for and against the application for more documents to be turned over to the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. The case is not expected to be back before the Court of Appeal until the spring.
In 2013, a Court of Queen’s Bench justice in Saskatoon ruled against the band on its application to have the school included in the residential school settlement.
This fight began about nine years ago, and has been in and out of court since 2009.
There is also another challenge that is underway – a class action law suit led by the Merchant Law Group in Regina. Both cases are calling for compensation for former students, but the legal basis of the cases are different.