Yukon issues formal apology for school's use of restraint, seclusion on students

The Yukon Legislative Building is seen in Whitehorse, on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)

WHITEHORSE, YUKON — The Yukon government has issued a formal apology for a Whitehorse elementary school’s repeated and routine use of restraints and confinement against students for more than a decade.

In a statement issued Thursday, Yukon Education Minister Scott Kent says teachers and staff at the Jack Hulland Elementary School “routinely and repeatedly employed holds, restraints and seclusion” on students “when there was no risk of the student harming themselves or someone else.”

The territory says the practices lasted from January 2007 to June 2022, and the procedures were used to “discipline students and modify their behaviour,” often excessively and for much longer periods than necessary.

The practices, which involved “physical restriction of a student which immobilizes or reduces the student’s ability to move his or her torso, arms, legs or head” as well as “the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room,” were also used by teachers and staff in a program intended to support students with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The practices resulted in a class-action lawsuit, and the territory says its apology comes as part of a mediated settlement in the case and was proposed by the plaintiffs’ counsel, with government in agreement.

The territory says the practices are taught to teachers and staff to use “only as a last resort when all other measures have failed to prevent imminent harm,” and the government is accepting full responsibility while offering support for those who were affected.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2026.