Sexual, physical abuse ‘rampant’ at Ontario training schools, suit alleges
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TORONTO — A man who says he was badly abused at one of Ontario’s now-defunct training schools is spearheading a proposed class-action against the province that seeks $600 million on behalf of other children and youth sent to the provincial facilities.
In his unproven statement of claim, Kirk Keeping, 64, alleges the schools were festering cesspools of sexual, physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by unsupervised and unqualified staff on hapless kids.
“The training schools contained a toxic environment in which degrading and humiliating treatment of children in the Crown’s care was the norm,” the claim states. “Physical, sexual and psychological abuse was rampant, and residents of training schools were systematically denied their dignity and basic human rights.”
The provincial training schools for boys and girls aged eight to 16 operated between 1931 until they were finally shut down in 1984. Those sentenced to the facilities were children found begging on the streets, runaways, truants, those deemed “incorrigible,” those convicted of petty offences, or those who, for various reasons, had inadequate adult supervision. Once there, they became wards of the Crown and were cut off from any family support.
