Former residents of the Huronia Regional Centre and their families were disappointed Monday after Premier Kathleen Wynne wouldn’t promise to apologize for physical, sexual and emotional abuse that thousands suffered there.



By: Rob Ferguson Toronto Star

Former residents of the Huronia Regional Centre and their families were disappointed Monday after Premier Kathleen Wynne wouldn’t promise to apologize for physical, sexual and emotional abuse that thousands suffered there over the decades.

“It really matters to us that it be the premier on behalf of the whole government,” said Marilyn Dolmage, questioning why an apology must wait after the province settled a class-action suit for $35 million last month.

“All three parties were in power during the time these bad things happened . . . we’d like the current government to face up to it,” added Dolmage, whose brother Robert died at the Orillia institution for the developmentally delayed in 1961.

Wynne said in the legislature’s daily question period that an apology would be premature at this point because a judge has not yet approved the settlement and the nature of a statement from the province.

“The court is still determining . . . the nature of an appropriate apology,” Wynne said, acknowledging Dolmage and others in the public galleries.

Huronia, founded in 1876 as the Orillia Asylum for Idiots, was closed in 2009. A nearby cemetery holds the graves of 2,000 who died there over the years, many of them children in plots marked by only a number.

One former resident was puzzled why Wynne wouldn’t commit to deliver the apology under the settlement in the case, which was launched in 2010 by former residents Marie Slark and Patricia Seth, the lead plaintiffs. Dolmage is the litigation guardian for Slark, 57.

“It only takes a minute to say, yes, I will. She must have some reason why she won’t,” said Barry Smith, who spent about five years at Huronia as a child and early teen.

“I could tell you things that would make your hair stand on end.”

Attorney General John Gerretsen said there will be a court hearing Dec. 3 to deal with the settlement, which covers 3,700 surviving residents since 1945. 

They are entitled to receive a maximum of $42,000 depending on the severity of abuse suffered. 

Slark, for example, says residents were forced to pull their pants down and walk around or lie face-down in dirt as punishment for swearing or taking cookies from the cafeteria.