Haircutting incident heading to human rights tribunal

The haircutting incident at a Thunder Bay school that prevented a First Nation boy from following his traditional dancing practices is going before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
“It was traumatic for him, it was traumatic for the family,” said Julian Falconer, explaining the seven-year-old boy did not participate in traditional dancing for “some time” after his hair was cut by a teacher’s assistant at McKellar Park School in April 2009.
The family asked for accountability and were demeaned for doing it, that somehow they were in it for the money, Falconer said.
“How bizarre is that? If it were anybody else’s child, I can absolutely assure you they would have asked for and gotten accountability,” Falconer, a Toronto-based lawyer known for human rights and public interest litigation, said.
Falconer, who is representing the boy’s family, said suggestions that the family is following through with the case just for the money are “pretty offensive.”
“If you have a child and a teacher forces that child to submit to that teacher’s will, including having their hair cut, hair that was grown for ceremonial purposes, why wouldn’t you be entitled to hold those accountable that put your child and your family through it?” Falconer said.
“It’s just another example of how somehow First Nations are not supposed to be entitled to accountability and others are.”
First Nation leaders had called for an investigation into the issue shortly after the haircutting incident happened, including Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse, who said First Nations want to understand why and how the incident happened and ensure it never happens again.
“For First Nations, this is a painful and harsh reminder of what our children suffered in the residential schools, where braids were cut as part of the overall denigration of our people and culture,” Toulouse said.
Alvin Fiddler, a Nishnawbe Aski Nation deputy grand chief at the time, called for an explanation of the circumstances that led to the decision not to lay charges against the teacher’s assistant.
“What we have now is confusion as the Thunder Bay Police say the responsibility for charges rests with the Crown and the Ministry of the Attorney General saying the responsibility rests with the Thunder Bay Police,” Fiddler said.
“First they claimed it wasn’t in the public interest and now for the first time, without ever having consulted with the child’s parents, they say it’s ‘to avoid revictimizing the child.’”
Falconer said each of the three organizations named in the human rights case, the Lakehead District School Board, the Thunder Bay Police Services Board and the Ministry of the Attorney General, failed the family in one fashion or another.
Representative of both the school board and police service declined to comment.
“Obviously, the teaching assistant who committed the assault on the child started the ball rolling but it’s important to understand how the system then failed the family,” Falconer said.
“Far from it being the truth that the (school) board called the police, that’s just not true at all, it was the family that did it.”
Falconer said the family’s experience was that the school board was far more concerned with protecting it’s reputation and it’s own rather than providing meaningful accountability on what had happened to the boy.
“Secondly, the actions of the Crown and the police in creating rules that were just different for this First Nations family than what would be otherwise the case, we say for non-Native families, they have to be held accountable for how they treated the family,” Falconer said.
Falconer said the family is looking for people to know how they were treated by the three organizations.
“They want it to come out how they were completely left out of the loop on key decisions that affected their child, how the police and the Crown simply entirely ignored the family and the family’s concerns as they made decisions that ultimately immunized those responsible for the incident,” Falconer said.
Falconer anticipates a mediation date being held on the case sometime within the next year. If the mediation is unsuccessful, a hearing will be held.