RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL FILM

Île-à-la-Crosse Survivors Still Waiting

Story by The Canadian Press

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Métis children along with First Nations children were subjected to the forcible attendance at residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Métis survivors, however, are in some cases, still fighting for the recognition and acknowledgment of what they experienced and the intergenerational impact they have borne. Chronicling the lives and struggles of Île-à-la-Crosse (ILEX) Residential School Survivors, a short film, Waiting for Justice, has been named the 2024 Best History Film at the Toronto Documentary Festival and is also being screened as part of the Toronto Short Film Festival. Waiting for Justice was co-produced with the full support of Métis Nation– Saskatchewan (MN–S) in 2023. Métis filmmaker Matt LeMay said, “Working on this project with our Indigenous Geographic team (Kaily Kay, Crystal Martin, and Derek Robitaille) was a profound honour. We wholeheartedly commit to supporting the Île-à-la-Crosse Survivors and their community until justice is rightfully served.” 

Despite being one of the oldest boarding schools in the country, the ILEX (I-le-Crosse) Residential School has never been formally recognized as such, or its Survivors compensated by the Federal or Provincial Government. ILEX Survivor, Louis Gardiner is part of a class action lawsuit filed against Canada and Saskatchewan in 2022. As one of the Survivors featured in ‘Waiting for Justice’, Gardiner said he has mixed emotions about the award, “On one hand, it’s a difficult film for us to watch but it’s something we felt necessary to be a part of to keep our stories alive and apply pressure on the appropriate governments and institutions to reach a settlement before all of our Survivors are lost.” 

The first Catholic mission was established in Île-à-la-Crosse in 1783. The initial School at ILEX was a day school opened by the Oblates' Roman Catholic Mission in 1847. In 1860, the Sisters of Charity, also known as the Grey Nuns arrived and transformed the School into a boarding/residential school. Nine girls and six boys comprised the first class of resident students. In 1874, a new school building was built on the site and the School became known as Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur. The School received federal funding in 1875 and 1876 but was denied further federal funding since it lay outside of Treaty Six territory, and Treaty Ten had not yet been signed. Nevertheless, in 1880, then-Prime Minister John A. Macdonald described the Île-à-la-Crosse School as one of four federal “Indian schools” that set the standard for other educational facilities. 

In 1901, the Mission grounds were flooded and by 1905, the poor living conditions led the Grey Nuns to leave the ILEX School. The school was relocated in 1906 to the nearby community of Lac la Plonge, where it was known as Beauval or St. Bruno's. Beauval eventually became a formally recognized Indian Residential School and its students were included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. In 1917, the Grey Nuns returned to Île-à-la-Crosse and Father Marius Rossignol reopened the School. Because the Mission managed the day-to-day operations of both schools, the two schools quickly became companion institutions. The Mission took in Aboriginal students from across Northern Saskatchewan, then sent the First Nations students to Beauval and the Métis students to the ILEX School. Because this system was never strictly enforced, however, a considerable number of Métis students attended Beauval, and a considerable number of First Nations students attended the ILEX School. Between 1917 and 1945, the Grey Nuns and the Mission conducted the day-to-day operations of the Île-à-la-Crosse School, while Canada provided funds for the School's operations. The Mission also continued to operate Beauval during this period and frequently shared federally funded resources between Beauval and the ILEX School, including supplies and staff who traveled back and forth between the two schools. The Mission staff (who also managed the operation of the Beauval School for First Nations students) and ILEX School administrators and staff (who were often also Beauval administrators and staff) treated the two schools interchangeably for purposes of compelling mandatory attendance. Although the Indian Act did not apply to Métis people, the Mission and School staff nevertheless informed nearby families and communities that it was mandatory for Métis children to attend the Île-à-la-Crosse School, and threatened forcible removal of their children if they did not comply.

In 1945, the Saskatchewan Department of Education officially assumed the administration of the Île-à-la-Crosse School. (Court File Number: KBG 1263-2022; Statement of Claim Gardner v. Canada; united4survivors.ca)

For more than one hundred years, Métis children were forcibly taken from their family homes and made to attend the Catholic institution. While there, they too were subjected to violence and abuse. The youngest survivors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Residential School are now in their fifties and the oldest are in their late nineties. The Metis survivors of residential schools are calling for the same supports as First Nations survivors to move themselves forward, …the recognition and acknowledgment of what happened to them, a settlement, and a healing fund.

Backed by Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S), the survivors have started a class action to spur both governments to join them at the table to negotiate a resolution that includes a recognition of the harms suffered at the school, failing which the class action will be litigated in court. The Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee Inc. is comprised of twelve board members representing twenty communities in Northwest Saskatchewan. The committee has been actively advocating for Survivors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School for over twenty years. Founding members of the committee include Antoinette Lafleur, Emile Janvier, Margaret Aubichon, and Duane Favel. On July 19, 2019, the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Île-à-la-Crosse Exploratory Discussions.

In the MOU, Canada acknowledged that Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors were excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), and all the groups involved agreed on a framework for “Exploratory Discussions.” These were preliminary discussions about what might be involved in negotiating a settlement for the Survivors. The Exploratory Discussions never got past the preliminary stages, and no settlement was reached with Canada. After the IRSSA was signed in 2006, requests could be made to add schools to the school list. The request to add the Île-à-la-Crosse School was denied, because Canada said that the School was run by the Mission, and not by the federal government, and it was not an “Indian” residential school. The Daniels Supreme Court decision that confirmed that Métis people are aboriginal people to whom the Federal Government owed a fiduciary duty was not decided until 2016, a decade after the IRSSA was signed.

The MOU is still in place. Now that the Gardiner Action has started, the lawyers will continue to work to try to settle with Canada and will encourage Saskatchewan to join this settlement effort. The lawyers, however, will not delay the court proceedings in the Gardiner Action while negotiations are underway because it is important not to further delay resolution. The Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School Steering Committee and the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan are collaborating with the plaintiffs named in the Gardiner Action to help with the prosecution of the claim.

In 2005, the Merchant Law Group started a proposed class action on behalf of the Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors. The Merchant lawsuit has never moved forward and has not even been certified as a class action. Almost all of the surviving plaintiffs from the Merchant lawsuit have fired Merchant Law Group and hired Waddell Phillips. These former Merchant clients all support the new Gardiner Action and want it to go forward as the only class action for the Île-à-la-Crosse School Survivors. The Gardiner plaintiffs will request that the Court “stay” the Merchant lawsuit, meaning that the Merchant action will be put to a stop by the court so that only the Gardiner Action will proceed. 

On November 9, 2023, Justice Bardai, the Gardiner Action case management judge, decided that the application to stay the Merchant lawsuit needed to be brought before a different judge, Justice Keene, who was appointed to case manage the Merchant lawsuit. Justice Bardai also said that the Gardiner Action could move forward to certification, regardless of the status of the other action.

In 1964, the boys' dormitory burned down and had to be rebuilt. At that time, there were 331 students at the School, about 100 of whom were resident students. Eight years later fire broke out again at the school which led to it being shut down. Although the building was rebuilt in 1976, the Saskatchewan Department of Education transferred the administration of the school to a locally run school board that year, and the residential school closed its doors. In total, approximately 1,500 Métis and First Nations students attended the Île-à-la-Crosse School between 1860 and 1972 from many communities across Northern Saskatchewan including Clear Lake, Old Lady's Point, Buckley's Point, Dore Lake, Sled Lake, Green Lake, Jans Bay, Cole Bay, Beauval, Patuanak, Pine House Lake, Sapwagamik, Canoe River, Buffalo Narrows, St. Georges Hill, Michel Village, Turner Lake, Bear Creek, Black Point, Descharme Lake, Garson Lake and La Loche.

MN–S is working diligently to host its own screenings of Waiting for Justice in various regions of Saskatchewan, specifically in ILEX. Once secured, communities will be invited to attend. You can watch the eighteen-minute award-winning short now at Indigenous Geographic, https://indigenousgeographic.ca/ourwork. As has been said of the Holocaust survivors, the Metis residential school survivors went on and made lives for themselves the best they could. They lost their language, families, roots, and sense of belonging, all at the same time…behind the doors of the Île-à-la-Crosse Residential School.

Carol Baldwin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wakaw Recorder