A trauma-informed approach was taken to help claimants from being retraumatized
A class-action lawsuit brought against the Ontario government on behalf of individuals who were placed into provincially operated training schools has been settled for $60 million and an acknowledgment of harm. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the settlement on May 21, 2026, and Attorney General Doug Downey and the court-appointed representative plaintiff, Warwick (Rick) Brown, jointly announced its approval on June 26, 2026.
The suit was filed on behalf of young people, mainly boys, who were forced to reside at one of 13 Ontario Training Schools between 1953 and 1984. The schools were located throughout the province in places including Bowmanville, Guelph, Cobourg, Lindsay, Port Bolster, Galt (now Cambridge), Hagersville, Simcoe, Sudbury, and South River. They ranged from maximum-security facilities to cabin-like accommodations, according to Elie Waitzer, an associate at Koskie Minsky LLP and one of the lawyers who worked on the case. Koskie Minsky has handled several institutional abuse settlements against the province, including a settlement for survivors of provincial schools for the deaf.
He says children who were sent to these schools could be as young as nine or ten or as old as sixteen. The reasons they were enrolled varied. Some were guilty of criminal acts, but others were just declared truant or unruly by a judge. Still others came from unstable homes. Amendments and updates to the Training Schools Act (which was replaced by the Young Offenders Act in 1984) affected who could be forced to attend.
While there, the settlement acknowledges that some of the then-children were subjected to “historic harms” and, as such, are entitled to receive up to $100,000 in compensation.
“We think it’s an excellent settlement following the conclusion of several years of very hard-fought litigation,” says Waitzer, adding that “$100,000 as the max compensation is by far the largest amount, on an individual basis, that Ontario has ever agreed to pay out in a class action settlement.”
That $100,000 figure is just the top of the payment scale, and only those individuals who “suffered one or more incidents of serious sexual assault” are entitled to that amount. Other harms are awarded lesser figures, ranging from $50,000 for repeated non‑consensual sexual touching to $25,000 for serious physical injury to $7,500 for placement in dissociation or solitary confinement. The tiered approach echoes a $12-million settlement reached for abuse at a provincial children's institution, which similarly scaled compensation by the severity of harm."
There is also a basic $5,000 general-harm payment for somebody who doesn’t want to describe, in detail on the claim form, that they were physically or sexually assaulted.
“Some people may not want to do that, and so with the flat payment, you just check a box saying ‘I experienced harm in any of the training schools,’” explains Waitzer.
While explaining what happened is part of the claims process, Waitzer says one hurdle was removed in the settlement: the requirement that individuals prove their claims.
“None of these people are going to have to be cross-examined in court or questioned about their historical experiences. That would be very, very difficult to prove in the court of law, given how long ago these things happened.”
That mirrors an approach used in an Indian residential schools settlement that didn't require survivors to identify supporting witnesses, reflecting a broader shift toward trauma-informed claims processes in institutional abuse cases.
Still, for those interested in historical records and facts, Waitzer says the settlement has established a process by which individuals can submit an expedited records request to obtain copies of their Ontario Training School records.
Another feature of the settlement is what Waitzer calls a “rare situation” that permits a secondary opt-out phase for those who decide to pursue their own litigation against the government.
While Waitzer doesn’t have the total enrolment figures for the schools, he does have a prediction for how many people will likely claim their compensation. As part of the court filings, the firm reported that actuarial experts estimated that between 1,900 and 2,400 class members would succeed in their compensation claims.
The settlement has been a long time in coming. The claim was originally launched in 2017 and certified in 2018. Waitzer says the pandemic delayed the process. The original representative plaintiff, Kirk Keeping, died. The parties engaged in several rounds of mediation, and steps were taken to move the case from Thunder Bay, where it was commenced, to Toronto, as it is closer to most of the class members and expert witnesses (both sides filed at least five expert witness reports).
Being able to avoid a trial is important, but so are the acknowledgements of the schools’ existence and that the harms caused by the training school system should never have occurred in the first place. As part of the recognition, a plaque will be erected to address the situation.
“It’s important to have a physical space where the survivors of the training schools can come and have a place to heal and see a commemoration of this chapter of Ontario’s history,” says Waitzer.
He adds that for Rick Brown, the man who stepped into the role of representative plaintiff, but who was only 10 when he was sent to a training school in 1963, the government’s apology was “extremely important”, just as it was for many of the class members. That apology was issued by Attorney General Doug Downey, and said in part, “Any abuse that kids suffered at these schools was wrong. It was wrong then. It is wrong now. We acknowledge and regret the harm that kids experienced in these institutions.”
As a part of the government announcement, Brown is quoted as addressing the settlement’s trauma-informed approach.
“So many kids left those schools broken. This settlement is about giving those kids a voice. It was extremely important to me that the compensation process be trauma-informed. I'm proud of what we achieved with this process. It is survivor-centric and user-friendly. It is an extremely streamlined process that does everything possible to avoid retraumatization.”
Waitzer says the trauma-informed response manifests in several ways. Both the administrator and class counsel operate call centres run by trauma-informed staff. On the claim forms themselves, there is contact information included for organizations that provide services such as sexual assault help lines or mental health support.
Additionally, he adds that the settlement makes available up to $1,500 that can be reimbursed to cover costs individuals might incur while seeing a doctor, psychologist, social worker, therapist, or counsellor to help prepare and deliver the claim.
“Some people will not have engaged with [their trauma] until now,” says Waitzer. “The act of writing down their claim may bring up a lot of traumatic memories and re-traumatize them.”
