Front Burner - Abuse accusations at ‘military-style’ Ontario school

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Robert Land Academy is a “military-style” school in Wellandport, Ontario. Since it opened in the 1970s, it’s used military-like structure and uniforms in a bid to mould struggling boys into confident, capable citizens.But last week, The Walrus contributing writer Rachel Browne published a piece with former students' allegations that they experienced violence, sexual abuse and racism at the school. The school maintains it has a zero-tolerance policy regarding corporal punishment.Today, Browne details the promise of Robert Land Academy, the allegations of overlooking abuse she heard from students, and takes a big picture look at how parents struggling for help with their kids has led to a booming ‘troubled teen industry’ in North America.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jonathan Milpitsy, in for Jimmy Puzzle. Hi, I'm Jonathan Mobutze, in for Jimmy Poisson. There probably isn't a parent who hasn't at one time or another wished that their children could be knocked into shape by a drill sergeant.

A few weeks in the army, you may have said, that would teach those kids a thing or two. What you're hearing is a 1981 report on CBC's Fifth Estate about a school near Niagara Falls called Robert Land Academy. Since it started up three years before that, the quote, military-style Ontario private school has promised to mold boys who struggled in regular schools into great citizens. These boys, some as young as 11 years old, are expected to perform to military standards. Be where you're told to be. Be on time. Don't talk back. Always say sir.

Attention! But last week, The Walrus contributing writer Rachel Brown published a piece that lays out former students' allegations of violence, sexual abuse, and racism at the school. Brown says nearly a dozen people are pursuing multi-million dollar lawsuits. The school isn't commenting on the lawsuits yet, but says the alleged incidents don't reflect the values of the school, and the news elicits, quote, shock and concern. And Brown has been looking at a much bigger phenomenon happening in North America, as parents look for help with their struggling kids.

The booming so-called troubled teen industry, one that Paris Hilton has drawn a ton of attention to. I'm like, please, can I just go home? I've already been through so much. I promise I'll never go to a club again. Please, like, I can't go back to these places. Like, you have no idea. So today I'm speaking with Rachel Brown about what Robert Land Academy says it does for kids,

what she heard in interviews with former students, and the ways our society treats kids who can't fit into our institutions. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for coming on. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for coming on. Hi, John. Thanks for having me. So I'm hoping that we can start with what exactly Robert Land Academy is supposed to be. It's not actually a military school, but if you look at the way it's run, why might you think it's one? Well, Robert Land Academy has, from the beginning, fashioned itself like the Army. It's 6 a.m., just a few miles from Niagara Falls. Somewhere nearby, youngsters are rolling over in bed, indulging themselves in an extra hour

of sleep before school. But here, holy 49 miles, 1,500 meters. But here at the Robert Land Academy, Canada's only private military school, it's 0600 hours and the day has already begun. The campus itself is modeled after a 19th century British fort. It has a parade square in the center of campus. There's barracks where the students sleep and a mess hall. Students and staff go by military-inspired ranks and titles. So there's boys and teens who are in the lower grades go by recruits and cadets. And then there's

at the top end, sergeant and warrant officer. So the environment itself and the way it looks very much mimics the army. And that goes for the disciplinary approach and the strict, very regimented nature of the school. You found this episode of CBC's Fifth Estate from the 80s that covered the school that really illustrates this. What's the bad side here? What don't you like about it? The punishment. The discipline. You just told me the discipline was a good part of it. It is. The discipline is good. It's receiving if that isn't so good.

In the long run it's good, in the short term it's not so good. And actually you also found a Canada Tonight episode from the 90s. What are you doing? Why are you using the ruler? We have to get perfect measurements for inspection, sir. But in your piece for The Walrus, you connect the school to this larger North American phenomenon, which is often referred to as the troubled teen industry. How do you see the school and its pitch fitting into that industry?

Because it's positioned as this place for troubled youth, for troubled boys, boys who just don't fit in or really struggling with behavioral issues, are seen as, boys and girls, because it promises parents a place that will reform their teens. A lot of these parents and caregivers are at the end of their rope. They really feel like there's maybe no other option for their children. And so there are these places all over North America that position themselves for a fee, wilderness activities. There's a lot of military-style schools, especially in the U.S., that are positioned as places where children can be sent to be put into a whole different type of environment, one that will help them and reform them. A thriving $50 billion industry of so-called therapeutic boarding schools and military-style boot camps where tough love is the medicine used to cure young people's problems.

How much regulation exists, like how much oversight exists for these schools in the U.S. and Canada? So because they're private schools, there's very little regulation of private schools here in Canada. So education is a province by province issue. These private schools are treated more like businesses. So obviously they have to adhere to our laws and regulations like any business or institution would, but they're not held accountable or necessarily inspected by educational bodies like public schools are. And the same goes for the U.S. There's a state-by-state approach. Some states are better than others in terms of regulating, but really it makes it quite easy for these types of places to really operate under the radar. They're accountable to themselves only. And really, parents and caregivers are then basing a lot of their decisions to send their

children and youth there based on what the school itself says, because they're not necessarily held accountable by any third party or government institution. Rachel, I'm hoping you can give me a sense of what your investigation revealed about what it's actually like to be a student at Robert Land. You mentioned in your piece that a number of former students are either planning legal action or already suing the academy. What do these lawsuits allege? The lawsuits allege that over many decades from the 1980s until very recently, and there's also human rights tribunal documents that allege various things at the school quite recently, things at the school quite recently. It runs the gamut from physical abuse, sexual abuse among students, deprivation of food, cruel and unusual treatment by staff and other students. And they allege, the statements of claim, as well as my interviews with former students, allege the school for many decades has overlooked or downplayed these allegations if they were ever made aware of them.

And so they're really accusing the school of fostering an environment where physical abuse, most prominently, has continued to exist over many decades. And so that's what these former students are coming out now and saying that that's had long-lasting impacts on them well into adulthood. and saying that that's had long-lasting impacts on them well into adulthood. And I'll just note here that none of the claims in the lawsuits have yet been tested in court. Has the school been able to mount any sort of defense yet? So these are all civil suits that have been launched so far. So there are statements of claim that these former students and one parent of a former student have launched thus far. In that process,

the institution that's facing the allegations has the opportunity to file a statement of defense. Robert Land has yet to file a statement of defense as far as I'm aware as of last week. So that's usually the next step in something like this. And they aren't publicly commenting on the nature of these civil suits saying that they're before the courts. Now, as you said, you also spoke to 10 former students, including ones who are suing the academy. Can you give me some specific examples of what they told you about their experience at the school? Yeah, so there's one former student who I call Martin in the piece. He started attending Robert Land in 2006. He was 12 years

old. And according to his statement of claim, he alleges that an older student who was tasked with overseeing him. So again, that military style hierarchy that exists in the school, apparently there are older students who are tasked with looking after the younger students who are new to the school. Martin alleges that one of those students that was tasked with overseeing him repeatedly abused him sexually, verbally, and physically. And according to his statement of claim, Martin says that the school failed to document his abuser's alleged offenses. The school, he alleges, failed to warn teachers and other students about his abuser. failed to warn teachers and other students about his abuser, and he alleges that the school did not put in proper reporting mechanisms and counseling that he feels like he should have been entitled to as someone who was an alleged victim of abuse. Martin's story kind of encapsulates a lot of what

I was hearing and seeing in other statements of claim as well, that there was this environment where abuse among students could take place and that the school, they allege, overlooked it over many years. In my interviews with other former students, a lot of them talked about being subjected to physical restraints. So many students told me that they were painfully restrained as a type of physical punishment for various types of offenses or offenses that the school believed they were committing. One student told me in an interview that a staff member allegedly twisted his arm behind him like a pretzel and forced him to the ground as a type

of punishment. And beyond those allegations of physical abuse, a lot of former students told me that they were not allowed to seal the letters that they were allowed to write home to their parents. So some of them wanted to tell their parents about what was going on, but felt that their communication with their parents through these letters or phone calls were being monitored and censored as well. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo.

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Do you have any sense of the history of the use of physical restraint at the school? So from what I can tell based on my interviews with students, as well as open source information, like you mentioned the CBC Fifth Estate report from many years ago, and there's also a lot of newspaper archive that's covered the school over the decades. over the decades, you know, corporal punishment was part of the school's approach to reforming and disciplining young students. At Robert Land, the rules are spelled out in a discipline code.

Punishment is unashamedly physical. For minor offenses, talking in class or not doing homework, there are laps around the parade square or work details. The most notorious form of discipline is the dreaded number 14, so-called because it's the 14th item on the list and because it involves 14 laps around the soccer field carrying a pack which weighs up to 35 pounds. And the thing to keep in mind is that corporal punishment in schools, religious institutions, in the home was seen as normalized in these previous decades, like the 70s and 80s, when schools like Robert Land were beginning. And so corporal punishment was common among the way that adults and caregivers and guardians would interact with children deemed to be troubled or

children who were seen as misbehaving. The strap, in particular, was frequently used as a disciplinary weapon in schools across Canada. And so over the decades, our approach to disciplining children, especially when it came to children and students in educational settings, that began to be criticized and reformed. and eventually the corporal punishment has been very much limited by the Canadian court system. And so in most recent years, that type of approach is highly regulated and highly restricted, both for parents and educators. filed with Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal. Allegations in a complaint filed by someone who was a student at Robert Land in 2019 and who is still a minor, so his identity can't be revealed. But what did he allege in the complaint? That student alleged that he was subjected to what he described in the documents

as cruel and unusual punishment and that he was subjected to anti-Black racism. He says in his document filed before the Human Rights Tribunal that he was harassed by staff at Robert Land. He alleges that staff would smack books out of his hands while he was reading them and that allegedly a staff member pushed his knee into the student's back. A quote from that document by the students claims that he was emotionally tortured, made to feel like a prisoner. He also echoed a lot of other students from whom I heard that he was not allowed to contact his parent. And so another claim that he makes in that document is that he was forced to wear a suit of shame and became so terrified that he urinated himself while wearing it. And he says, according to that document, he still has urination issues to this day.

And just quickly, Rachel, what happened to that human rights tribunal complaint? So that human rights tribunal complaint was later abandoned very quickly after. But that student is now one of the clients of the lawyer who is suing Robert Land on behalf of the students that are mentioned in the piece. The school's founder and former headmaster, Scott Bowman, he declined an interview with you. But what has the school itself had to say about the allegations in your story and the lawsuits it's facing? So Robert Land wouldn't comment on the specific allegations involving the students. They acknowledged that there were lawsuits, but they said they couldn't comment because they're before the courts. There's ongoing privacy issues.

But Robert Land did tell me that the school maintains a clear and strict zero tolerance policy regarding corporal punishment and the use of physical restraints. Rachel, we've been talking about allegations made by former students, but going back decades, you also found some very public tragedies connected to the school. I'd like to spend some time talking about two of those. Now, let's start with what happened in 1998 in Burlington, Ontario, which is just about a 45-minute drive north of the academy. in Burlington, Ontario, which is just about a 45-minute drive north of the academy. Yeah, this was one of the incidents that I came across in the very early stages of my reporting and research. And so this was a weekend in the winter of 1998. There was an engineer operating an eastbound freight train through Burlington, Ontario, as you mentioned.

He spots these two boys lying across the train tracks, and they were wearing what he could tell to be school uniforms. And later we learned that it was 17-year-old Matt Toppy and 16-year-old Christopher Brown who had run away from Robert Land Academy the night before. And the train was approaching very, very quickly. It was too late for the engineer to slow down the train. And the one boy tried to pull the other one off of the track, but It was too late for the engineer to slow down the train, and the one boy tried to pull the other one off of the track, but it was too late. They were both killed instantly by the train. A gray drizzle fell over Canada's only military-style boarding school, matching the mood of students and instructors here. The 160 cadets and the staff are mourning the suicide death Saturday night of two students.

A school representative read a prepared statement. The staff and cadets of the academy are deeply saddened by the recent incident in Burlington that took the lives of two of our cadets. And friends and fellow students at Robert Land later came out and said that the boys were fleeing abuse that they were allegedly experiencing at the school for British Columbia all the way at the other end of the country. And so that story became kind of this, what former students told me, this tale that was used for years and years after these students' death as sort of a warning that if any students at Robert Land tried to flee, that they could end up with the same type of fate as these two boys who were struck and killed by the freight train. There was another incident, right, in 2010

when 18-year-old Donald McNeil's mother was driving him back to the school from Halifax. Can you tell me what happened there? Yeah, the details of the 2010 incident are less known. There was a lot less reporting on that at the time. And I had a lot of trouble sort of figuring out what the exact details of that incident were. 17-year-old Halifax boy is dead after a bizarre accident in Niagara. But there was the young boy who was driving back with his mother back to school,

apparently being driven from Halifax back to Robert Land Academy after a term break. And he, according to local news reports, jumped out of the car and started running down the middle of the roadway. One driver managed to swerve out of the way, but a 42-year-old woman following that car didn't see the teen and struck him. And he died. Off-duty paramedic had come by, and we had rolled him over and tried to resuscitate him. But by the time we had tried to do that, it was probably too late already. Robert Land did not comment on this particular story at the time, nor did they this time when I reached out to them about it. But again, the similarities between this story involving Donald McNeil from 2010 and the 1998 story, it's really striking.

So, Rachel, both before and between those two events in 1998 and 2010, you also found pieces in the Hamilton Spectator and National Post about the school. What did these articles allege about the academy? Yeah, the Hamilton Spectator piece is really interesting, and I think it's a really great example of investigative reporting. So in 1996, the Hamilton Spectator really started to dig into the credentials of Robert Land Academy's founder, a man named Scott Bowman. Bowman, from the outset, had always professed these links to the Canadian military. He always pointed to his work as an intelligence officer for NATO and boasted about to convey his serious, strict, disciplinary, military-based background that he could apply to the student body and the population at Robert Land. When limits are given, when the structure is very clear, when boys choose to challenge the structure in a negative way,

yes, very clearly the consequences are laid out beforehand. the structure in a negative way, yes, very clearly the consequences are laid out beforehand. He also claimed that he had a bullet hole in his body from this type of work. He had 400 stitches as a result of combat. And the Hamilton spectator really dug into each of these claims, asked him for a copy of his resume, tried to cross-reference all of the claims that he was making, reaching out to the various bodies that he was referring to, like NATO and the Canadian military. And the report eventually concluded that checks on the claims that Bowman was making came up empty. And so way back in the mid-90s, there were a lot of questions about Scott Bowman's credentials. There were a lot of questions about Scott Bowman's credentials.

Rachel, did any of the people you spoke to talk about alleged problems with the ideology of the school or some other core parts of the school's culture? Yeah, that was something that came up quite a bit. A lot of people I talked to said that they were taken there against their will by their parents and caregivers. that they were taken there against their will by their parents and caregivers. And then, again, the disciplinary approach taken by the school kind of perpetuated any anxieties or ongoing behavioral issues that these former students were struggling with. They say that the environment and treating children like potentially like soldiers or members of the military when this is not necessarily what they consented to do or what their caregivers were sold. And so a lot of them have questioned whether or not this tough love approach is really effective. They question whether there's any sort of real evidence to back this up. And there's experts I've spoken to who suggest that a tough

love, really harsh disciplinary approach, especially for youth who are struggling, can create more harm. Rachel, what's your sense of what parents knew about the school? Like, do they know about the allegations that you've been talking about? Do they know about the reporting about those past incidents in 98 and 2010? Like, how aware are parents of what goes on at the school? Certainly in recent years, and I would say in the mid-2000s especially onward, parents were not aware of the allegations that many students had talked about publicly with regards to the school. They would trust what the school was saying about itself. And I will say that there are a lot of students and a lot of former students who online, well, I've heard from a couple of them myself

since the story has come out, they say that the school helped them. They don't deny that there were super harsh disciplinary tactics, but there are a lot of students who have, you know, praised the school over the years and say that it was, you know, they needed that tough love approach. It took me three years to adjust and to say to myself, wake up, you know, you're at Robert Land and you're going to try it. And I've been trying and I think I'm going to make it. For me, it was a living nightmare. Matt Manero's parents sent him to the academy after he had trouble in a regular school.

He says without Robert Land's military-style discipline, he might have wound up on the streets taking drugs. It was very hard to cope with the stress, the physical and emotional stress, but it proved to be a very rewarding experience for me. So a lot of parents and caregivers who are looking at a school like this will look at those types of testimonials that oftentimes come from the school directly. But certainly none of the parents that I'm aware of knew of any allegations or the extent of the allegations. One mother I talked to said that she was aware that it was a military-style school, but her hope for her child was that it would just instill a sense, you know, a strict regimen, like waking up at X amount of time, respecting your teachers,

respecting your elders, developing skills, that kind of thing. More of like a camp as opposed to kind of a very strict military style institution. So no, I think over the course of many years, a lot of these news reports going back to 1998 and the Hamilton Spectator Report, a lot of those are not easy to find online. There are oftentimes behind paywalls or news archive. I had to dig in news archive to find those. So unless you knew where to look, it would be very difficult to find sort of the breadth of these allegations over many years. Rachel, I want to step away from the Robert Land Academy for a moment and ask you more about the broader troubled teen industry. Why has it been getting so much attention lately? Yeah, I think it's important to note that the troubled teen industry has been around for many, many decades.

It's exploded in popularity, especially in the U.S. in recent years. And through a lot of advocacy and posts on social media by former students who have come out and shared their own stories of abuse, there's whole Reddit threads dedicated to troubled teen survivors, troubled teen industry survivors. And so as more and more former students have continued to come out on social media and through documentaries and Hilton came out with her own story of being sent to one of these institutions in Utah. She talked about it in the documentary. This is Paris, talked about it in her memoir. The last school that I went to was Provo Canyon School. And that was the worst of the worst.

There's no getting out of there. And she has really been spearheading a lot of this advocacy and awareness around the abuses that are perpetuated within a lot of these institutions. institutions. And then over the last year or so, we've seen a Netflix documentary series, The Program, which goes into abuses at a network of sites dedicated to reforming, quote unquote, troubled teens. And then there's a new HBO documentary coming out called Teen Torture, Inc. So it's really kind of been this groundswell of advocacy and awareness about these types of institutions in recent years. But then, like, why do these institutions and these programs remain so popular even now? We're at a time right now where a lot of parents and caregivers are at the end of their rope.

They're struggling to find places that can help teens and youth who are increasingly struggling with mental health and behavioral issues. And there are institutions and programs that can provide help and are evidence-based and transparent and accountable in one way or another. And so there are institutions like this. They may not be boarding schools, but there are programs that provide help and evidence-based non-harmful approaches. But at the same time, a lot of parents and caregivers are desperate for any place that provides hope, that offers support, and offers help to struggling teens and youth.

And so there's a great demand for these types of institutions. They make these lofty promises that are understandably appealing to caregivers and parents. But then at the same time, the context allows for these types of institutions to perpetuate, in some cases, cover-up abuses. Rachel Brown, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. Thanks, John. I just wanted to provide one note specifically in relation to the former Robert Lang Academy students who alleged that their communications with their parents were monitored or prevented. The school did tell Rachel in a statement that, quote, staff are not permitted to read students' emails or letters, and that the

school does, quote, support and encourage regular communication between students and their parents or caregivers. That's all for today. I'm Jonathan Mopsy, in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow.