Realwomen of BC - Archives - March2008 - The Legacy of Woodlands

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THE REAL NEWS The R.E.A.L WOMEN of BC Newsletter March 2008, P.O. Box 39068, Point Grey RPO, Vancouver, BC V6R 4P1, Tel/Fax: 604- 463-1611, website: http://www.realwomen.bc.ca
The Legacy of Woodlands In 1878 the “Public Hospital for the Insane” was established in New Westminster. In 1950, the government decided to separate the children living there from the adults. This children’s facility became known as “Woodlands School”. After 1950, as many as 1600 children lived in lock-down conditions at any one time inside outdated buildings that formerly housed BC’s “lunatics.” But Woodlands was not a school residents graduated from. In fact in 1973, there were only 12 teachers for all those children. Most children, once committed to Woodlands, lived their lives there until they escaped, or died or until the facility was closed in 1996. Few escaped. In 2001, the Ministry for Children and Family Development’s predecessor-initiated report called The Need to Know: Administrative Review of Woodlands School was released. The report, written by former ombudsman, Dulcie McCallum, focused on the administration of Woodlands from 1950 to its closure in 1996. It found that widespread systemic abuse of residents had occurred at Woodlands School in New Westminster. Besides physical, mental, and sexual abuse, torture, and neglect, children were also used in genetic research and drug experiments for more that 30 years. Almost 3000 people who died in government care and were unclaimed were buried at Woodlands between 1926 and 1957. In 1977, a Social Credit cabinet order-in-council resulted in the removal of over 1800 gravestones. Some of these headstones were used to construct a staff barbecue patio and stairs. After 1958, unclaimed bodies were sent to UBC as cadavers. The Need to Know report recommended that the government apologize to and compensate all former residents, and urged a second-stage investigation into the systemic abuse as no staff member has ever been charged with abuse or assault (because this was not one of the mandates of the original report). In response to the report, a limited apology and a promise of a $2-million legacy fund for counseling for former residents of Woodlands and two other facilities came from government officials. Former residents, employees and professionals of Woodlands have also confirmed the abusive practices which were permitted at that government-run institution – but no compensation has ever been forthcoming. In 2004 a second report was released by the Public Guardian and Trustee of BC, and in 2005, a group of survivors of Woodlands (calling themselves We Survived Woodlands, or WSW) produced their own brief called Do the Right Thing asking the government to settle out of court. And then in October 2005, a BC Supreme Court decision came down which stated that the government cannot be sued for any wrongdoing prior to 1974. This ruling affected many of the still living former residents of Woodlands. Recently a lawyer, who had been working on a class action suit on behalf of the former Woodlands residents, secretly crafted a settlement with government lawyers without consulting with his clients, the members of the group called We Survived Woodlands. The clients thus had no input into the so-called settlement agreement which set out a point system for former residents to have their abuse classified (and have to relive it) so they could be allotted compensation based on their experiences! What if they don’t or can’t speak? What if it is too traumatic for them to recall? It is dehumanizing to expect all the former residents to have to come forward to relive and express the degradation, abuse, and torture that they suffered all over again! The members of WSW decided to fire their lawyer. The lawyer then tried to have the class action suit redefined so that many of the survivors would be eliminated! On July 24th, 2007, Judge Brian Butler ruled that the lawyer had breached his duty of loyalty and removed him as class counsel, but the lawyer then applied for leave to appeal the decision to remove him, and this trial (that none of the survivors wants) began in January and is expected to last 27 weeks. William Hunt McArthur, a representative Plaintiff of the Woodlands survivors and spokesperson for the WSW Group asks, “Why does the Attorney General insist on conducting a third review of what happened at Woodlands through a lengthy and painful trial? Why is it so difficult to accept that (all) children were abused at Woodlands and to apologize to those of us who have survived? We have waited a very long time for justice and compensation. We are asking for an apology and a common experience payment. Every one of us who was at Woodlands suffered and we must live with the memories of what was done to us and what we witnessed. Many former residents have died without ever having their suffering acknowledged. Many of those still living will probably die while waiting for justice. “What happened to us at Woodlands should never have happened. The only right way to deal with this terrible wrong is to give justice to the survivors and to ensure that never again will our society remove children from their communities and lock them away because they have disabilities.” REAL Women of BC Board members are looking into the possibility of officially supporting the WSW Group in their efforts to receive compensation for the pain and suffering they endured as residents of Woodlands and afterwards, because of what they endured. When one of us suffers injustice, we all become more vulnerable to suffering injustice. If the government won’t compensate, the least they should do is investigate to press criminal charges against all the perpetrators who are still living, wherever they may be found.