In a legal victory, the Supreme Court has finally ruled that First Nations can make laws to protect their children. But there is still so much work still to do.
A First Nations leader in northern Ontario says a new recommendation from a government oversight body, if implemented, would bring the standard of care for grieving Indigenous families to a bare minimum.
Lawsuit against coroner after death of Indigenous child should proceed: appeal court
July 27, 2021
THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO-A lawsuit filed by the family of a four-year-old Indigenous boy against the coroner tasked with investigating his death will be allowed to proceed after Ontario’s top court found a judge erred in dismissing it before trial.
In a unanimous decision released this week, the Court of Appeal for Ontario said the motion judge erred in analyzing two of the grounds of the lawsuit, and the claim should be permitted to go ahead on allegations of misfeasance of public office and breach of charter rights.
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Ontario’s top court has cleared the way for legal claims against the province and the Ontario Coroner s office over the handling of the 2014 death of four-year-old Brody Meekis in Sandy Lake First Nation.
In 2019, Thunder Bay Superior Court Justice John Fregeau dismissed claims by Meekis’s family that the coroner’s investigation into the child’s death from strep throat had been inadequate and discriminatory.
Fregeau concluded the coroner had met legal requirements and the family s claim had no reasonable prospect of success in a trial, striking it in its entirety.
Monday’s unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal partially overturns that ruling, opening the door for the family to proceed with claims of misfeasance in public office against the investigating and supervising coroners, and a claim of breach of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms against the province.