Survivors of Ontario’s ‘training schools’ say their suffering is being ignored
CLARINGTON, Ont. — Survivors of a shadowy chapter in the history of Canada’s prison system say the legacy of the alleged abuse they endured as children is being ignored, if not erased.
They point to a recent decision by the town of Clarington, Ont., to refurbish and repurpose the Jury Lands, most commonly known as the site of Camp 30 — a prisoner-of-war camp for captured high-ranking Nazis during the Second World War.
For more than 50 years, it was also the site of the Pine Ridge Training School — a correctional facility for children, mostly boys, aged eight to 18 who were deemed “unmanageable.”
The schools — about a dozen in Ontario — were shuttered in the early 1980s.