u/Homeless-Sea-Captain

If you get a paywall / ad block situation: https://archive.ph/Zd10a

What a name! And when the guy interviewed refers to the establishment as “My Daddy’s” (without the 🍰) 😆 TC = so strange to me.

From article:

It was the moment 41-year-old Jarett Holmes has been waiting decades to see - a police service sending out a message to the public that it’s actively investigating his former school for alleged child abuse.

“I didn’t know if we would ever see this moment and it’s really, really heartening to see,” said Holmes in a Zoom interview with CTV News Sunday. “We’ve never seen a police agency publicly state that they’re investigating Robert Land Academy -- and there have been so many of us who have died trying to run away from this place -- so this is a really big deal for us.”

Holmes says he attended the school as a 14-year-old, and claims he experienced physical abuse and alleges he witnessed acts of violence against other students.

Former students said in a press conference last year at Ontario’s Legislative Building that over a hundred alumni have died ‘early deaths,’ with the median age of 35 and nearly half due to suicide and overdose.

Now, Peel Regional Police (PRP) has sent out a news release, saying its Special Victims Unit is leading an investigation into allegations of child abuse at Robert Land Academy, a former military-style all-boys boarding school between Hamilton and Niagara in Southern Ontario that operated from 1978 to 2025.

“Investigators are seeking to speak with anyone who may have any information related to alleged abuse at the academy,” said the release.

The Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) would usually have jurisdiction over the investigation due to where the school is located, but it says it has passed it off to Peel police because of Niagara police officers’ involvement with the school over the years.

“In accordance with the potential or perceived conflict of interest provisions within the Community Safety and Policing Act (CSPA) Regulations, the Niagara Regional Police Service requested that Peel Regional Police take carriage of the investigation given that NRPS members have had previous employment at Robert Land Academy,” said Stephanie Sabourin with the Niagara Regional Police Service in an email to CTV News Sunday.

Notable quotes:

“People need to know that conversion therapy is not helpful for anyone,” he explained. “They need to be educated about how terrible it is.”

This ban was extremely important because it protected a vulnerable population from coercion disguised as treatment. Now, with the Supreme Court’s ruling, countless young LGBTQ+ kids could be at risk and some will choose to end their lives after experiencing the torture of conversion therapy. Their blood will be on the hands of these justices.

Major medical organizations, among them the American Psychological Association, declared “sexual orientation change efforts” harmful. The practice is rejected by every major medical and mental health organization because it has been proven to cause measurable psychological damage.

Experts agree that the approach is an extremely dangerous practice, and it was abandoned by the American Medical Association in 1994. A 2020 report by the Williams Institute found that “LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy [are] almost twice as likely to attempt suicide” as those who have not. This is on top of the already alarming rates of attempted suicide (12%) or suicidal ideation (39%) that LGBTQ+ youth said they experience.

Looking back, I realize now my nephew was lucky to have survived such a traumatic experience. As both a therapist and a mother figure in his life, I’m grateful he’s still with us. When I asked Isaiah what he wanted people to understand about conversion therapy, he said, “It’s the most damaging thing you can do to a young person. You’re abusing them. It’s mental abuse.”