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Two Thunder Bay women who say they were abused while wards of the Crown are attempting to take the province – their former guardian – to task for failing to protect their rights.
Holly Papassay, 42, and Toni Grann, 47, are the public face of a proposed $110-million class-action lawsuit filed in January against the Ontario government. Two law firms representing the plaintiffs said about 300 more former Crown wards have come forward with stories of alleged abuse.
“These are public children who were victims of abuse and who suffered even more abuse while under the province’s care, and as a result of that abuse and neglect, they were entitled to claim compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (CICB),” lawyer Jonathan Ptak said at Queen’s Park Monday.
The lawsuit – which is yet to be certified in court – alleges the province failed to inform these children of their rights to file a claim with the CICB or take action against their abusers.
“They closed their files and gave them nothing,” lawyer Sandy Zaitzeff said. “And you can imagine how a small fund would’ve helped with the care that they needed, with counselling or possibly medications for various things.”
Papassay and Grann were both placed in homes where they say they were abused for years.
“I was raped, sodomized, sexually assaulted, sexually humiliated in every way, shape, or form, from the ages of five to 10,” Grann said. Her abuser was eventually convicted of sexual assault.
Papassay said she wants foster and adoptive homes to be “better investigated before you place a child in that home. I just want it to be acknowledged that they did wrong to me and that the way their system is right now isn’t the way it should be,” she said.
Ptak said the lawsuit expects to represent tens of thousands of Crown wards from 1966 onwards.
Children’s Aid Societies should have been under ombudsman oversight “years ago,” NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo said. “Overwhelmingly what one feels when one hears these stories is just sadness,” she said.
The Ministry of the Attorney General would not comment on the lawsuit. “As this matter is subject to litigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further,” spokesman Brendan Crawley said.
Maryam Shah
24 March 2014
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/24/former-crown-wards-say-ontario-govt-didnt-protect-them
