SCC File No - Wagners

9
40. This past February, the Mayor of Halifax issued a public apology to fonner residents of
Africville - an all-Black Halifax community which was tom down in the 1960s to make way for
a bridge. Africville is a hallmark for the shameful treatment of Blacks in Nova Scotia. While it
existed, it was an impoverished community which had no running water, no sewers, no fire
department and little access to electricity or police protection. In tenns of displacement, nearly
100 Black families - the descendants of fonner slaves from American and British colonies who
first settled there in the early 1800s - were evicted.
C) Incest and Wardship Sexual Abuse - Cut from the Same Cloth? The Comparable Case
of M.(K.} v. M.(H.}
41. When children live in a facility like the Coloured Children Home, those who look after
them take on a special role. They are providers, protectors and akin to parents. When these
figures fail to protect and provide for children and instead sexually abuse them, the ramifications
for the child can be similar to the damage caused by incest. Much like incest, the full injury
caused by this kind of sexual abuse is both complex and devastating. As noted in M (K) v.
M. (H.), the damages often manifest:
... slowly and imperceptibly, so that the victim may only come to realize the
hanns ... suffered, and their cause, long after the statute of limitations has
ostensibly proscribed a civil remedy.
Ref: M.(K) v. M.(H), [1992] 3 S.C.R. 6 at 1 [Tab 6B]
42. M. (K) v. M (H.) is a comparable case which focuses on incest. In this case a young girl
was sexually abused by her father from the ages of 8 to 16 years old. She commenced an action
against him much later in life, at the age of 28.
Ref: M. (K) v. M. (H), supra at 4, 5, 7 [Tab 6B]
43. Like Robert Borden, she told several people about the abuse, including:
• A high school guidance counsellor;
• A psychologist;
• Her employer;
• Her first husband; and
• Her second husband.
Later, she joined a self-help group for incest victims. Only then did she begin to "make the
connection between that history and her psychological and emotional problems". Before then,
she believed her psychological issues "were attributable to her own stupidity".