An extraordinary 11th-hour government attempt to stop a\u00a0judge from ruling on a bitter eight-year legal fight over the Sixties Scoop is under fire from the plaintiffs and observers, who denounced it Wednesday as galling and unprecedented political interference in judicial proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a blistering note to Ontario Superior Court, the plaintiffs urge Justice Edward Belobaba to reject the Liberal government’s request to put his decision on ice one week before he was expected\u00a0to issue it.<\/p>\n
“It is difficult to provide a measured and professional response\u00a0to this request by new counsel for (Canada),” Morris Cooper, one of\u00a0the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in an email to Belobaba obtained by The\u00a0Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
“This unprecedented, unilateral request by the defendant (amounts to) shameless audacity, impudence, gall, or effrontery.”<\/p>\n
Belobaba reserved his decision late last week on whether the federal government is liable to about 16,000 at-risk indigenous children in Ontario taken from reserves and placed in non-aboriginal homes from 1965 to 1984. The plaintiffs, who seek $1.3 billion in damages in the class action, maintain they suffered a devastating loss of cultural identity.<\/p>\n
The federal government has fought tooth and nail against the plaintiffs, arguing it has no liability. However, in a major\u00a0turnaround last week<\/a>, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett\u00a0made a vaguely worded announcement in which she said the government\u00a0now wanted to negotiate a national settlement to bring a close to\u00a0what she called a “dark chapter”<\/a> in Canada’s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n This week, Barney Brucker, a prominent Justice Department lawyer,\u00a0wrote Belobaba to say the government wanted to discuss the\u00a0“potential benefits to the negotiations that an abeyance of your\u00a0decision might have” in light of Bennett’s announcement.<\/p>\n Brucker’s note, also obtained by The Canadian Press, indicated\u00a0the government was prepared to file a formal court motion to block\u00a0the ruling if no agreement could be reached.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs, however, made it clear they wanted no part of\u00a0such discussions.<\/p>\n “We have faced eight years of litigation and appeals of purely\u00a0procedural matters and well over a year of effort to get this first\u00a0ruling on the merits of this claim,” Cooper wrote the justice.\u00a0“The class members and victims of the Sixties Scoop deserve a\u00a0decision.”<\/p>\n Belobaba, who had indicated his intention to rule on or about\u00a0Feb. 16, showed little immediate appetite for wading into the fray.<\/p>\n “It goes without saying that in the normal course, and absent\u00a0the consent of both parties, a decision is released when it is\u00a0scheduled to be released,” Belobaba wrote the parties.<\/p>\n The government, however, was undeterred. In another note to\u00a0Belobaba on Wednesday, Brucker again expressed a desire to stop the decision.<\/p>\n “We are of the view that the circumstances that pertain are\u00a0unique and that the abeyance sought is ultimately in the interest of\u00a0all concerned parties in this and other Sixties\u00a0Scoop litigation that\u00a0is not before this court,” he said.<\/p>\n In response, Belobaba said his “present intention” was to\u00a0release his ruling Feb. 15 but Brucker could file a written delay\u00a0motion with him directly.<\/p>\n “I have never heard of a defendant succeeding in a motion to\u00a0delay the release of a decision but I am keeping an open mind,”\u00a0Belobaba said, adding he would rule on any such a motion by early\u00a0next week.<\/p>\n In a statement Wednesday, Bennett said the government wants to\u00a0move “these issues” out of courtrooms and instead negotiate with\u00a0victims of “historic wrongs” in good faith.<\/p>\n “In this case, the government is asking, again, to sit down with all parties to discuss the best way forward to achieve a fair\u00a0settlement for the claimants, and to advance reconciliation between\u00a0indigenous people and the government of Canada,” she said.<\/p>\n Marcia Brown Martel, the lead plaintiff in the class action,\u00a0slammed what she said was just another government delaying tactic to\u00a0avoid accountability for its actions. Bennett’s words of\u00a0reconciliation, she said, ring hollow.<\/p>\n “When it comes to a court process, they have not acknowledged\u00a0the wrongs, the detrimental history, that they have committed upon\u00a0our people, our aboriginal children in this country,” Brown Martel\u00a0said. “They are trying to circumvent that legal process through\u00a0political manoeuvring.”<\/p>\n In an interview, Cooper called it “mind-boggling” that a\u00a0litigation lawyer would contact the judge hearing the case without the knowledge or consent of the opposing party.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Sixties\u00a0Scoop claims have been filed in several other\u00a0provinces, those are independent of, and not nearly as advanced as,\u00a0the Ontario action launched eight years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/sixties-scoop-judge-ruling-federal-government-1.3972395?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An extraordinary 11th-hour government attempt to stop a\u00a0judge from ruling on a bitter eight-year legal fight over the Sixties Scoop is under fire from the plaintiffs and observers, who denounced it Wednesday as galling and unprecedented political interference in judicial proceedings.\u00a0 In a blistering note to Ontario Superior Court, the plaintiffs urge Justice Edward Belobaba […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-70016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Plaintiffs want ‘no part’ in talks\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Government not backing down\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Slammed as government ‘tactic’\u00a0<\/h2>\n