Thousands of northern Ontario survivors of boarding home program eligible for compensation

Ethier, 73, and Gaudreau, 71, were first placed as teenagers with a young couple that already had two young children of their own in 1969.

They say the husband was loud, drunk and violent toward his wife, and the girls heard fights from where they were huddled in their bedrooms upstairs.

The most hair-raising night was when the man yelled that he was going to burn the house down.

Ethier described how they changed into their clothes and planned an escape route, making sure they could take the other young children with them if the man made good on his threat.

They made it through the night and went to school the next day.

When they got back, the wife told them other arrangements were being made for them.

“I was happy to get out of there, figuring we’re going into a better home, but it wasn’t any better than the first one,” said Gaudreau.

At the next home, they described the new landlady as being very cross.

Gaudreau said they had only oatmeal and water for breakfast and pasta for lunch and dinner for weeks on end.

“You couldn’t even go in the fridge to take a fruit or drink,” said Gaudreau. “We had to go in our bedroom and stay there. We weren’t allowed to watch TV, so we were isolated.” 

That isolation, say Ethier and Gaudreau, was profound in a time when there was no internet or cell service.

The two returned to their community for the Christmas holidays, and vowed never to return to Kirkland Lake. Ethier gave up on her dream of becoming a nurse.

“It bothered me a lot, but you know, it’s something that I had to let go,” she said. “I had to do it for me because I wasn’t going back to that kind of life anymore.”

Link to full story here.