Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing

Rampant gas-sniffing by Innu kids was a direct result of the physical and sexual abuse they were enduring by day, at school, says a former Innu Nation Grand Chief.

Prote Poker was speaking with media after the first day of a hearing to have a class-action lawsuit certified in Supreme Court.

The suit was launched two years ago, and surrounds claims of abuse at day schools in Labrador between 1949 and 2009.

Certification would allow claimants to sue as a class or group, something the governments of Canada and this province, which funded and ran the schools, both oppose.

Several survivors, including Poker, were in the courtroom yesterday for the first of four days of hearings.

“In the media children were gas-sniffing, and those were some of the results of what happened in the schools,” he said. “People were physically and sexually abused, but we didn’t put it out there. We told our parents, but our parents were frightened of the priests and the teachers.”

Frightened not just of them, but also the risk of losing any financial support they were receiving from government.

The application for certification continues today and tomorrow in Supreme Court.