The father of a Toronto high school student who drowned last summer while on a school-organized canoe trip says he is relieved a criminal charge has now been laid.
Nicholas Mills, 54, a teacher C.W. Jeffreys Collegiate Institute, was charged Thursday with criminal negligence causing death in the July, 2017, drowning of Jeremiah Perry. Mills has been on home assignment since Perry’s death.
Perry, 15, drowned during a canoe trip in Ontario’s Algonquin Park while taking part in a summer outdoor education course.
He was not wearing a lifejacket when he and a group of kids went into the water at Big Trout Lake to wash off.
Perry disappeared under the water. His body was found the next day.
The Toronto District School Board later revealed that Perry, along with nearly half of the 32 students on the trip, failed a mandatory swim test before the excursion.
The Ontario Provincial Police announced Thursday they had charged Mills “following a thorough and professional investigation.” He is scheduled to make a court appearance on Sept. 11.
The charge of criminal negligence causing death carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
OPP Const. Catherine Yarmel told CP24 on Thursday that Mills was the designated team leader for Perry’s group. She said Mills was also tasked with designing the trip itinerary and was responsible for the overall supervision of the trip.
Jeremiah’s father, Joshua Anderson, released a statement through his lawyer saying he is relieved a charge has been laid more than a year after his son died.
“This last year has felt like an eternity for my family and I, but we understand that it takes time to fully investigate a tragedy like this,” he said in his statement.
“…We are relieved that the investigation has resulted in criminal charges being laid against the teacher who organized and led Jeremiah’s trip. We believe these charges are warranted under the circumstances.”
He added that while nothing can bring back his son or take away the pain of losing him, he hopes the criminal case will be an important step “in ensuring that a tragedy like this never happens again on a school trip.”
A civil claim against the individuals and organizations involved is pending, the family’s lawyer said.
The Toronto District School Board said in a statement that it is limited in what it can comment on, but said it remains deeply troubled by the results of the board’s internal investigation which found that critical safety requirements, such as passing a swim test, “do not appear to have been followed by the lead teacher supervising the trip.”
TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird said the school board has taken steps to make sure a similar incident never happens again.
“We want parents to send their kids on trips and rest assured they’ll be okay. And that’s what our safety requirements were in place to do. It would appear they were not followed,” Bird said.
The charge against the teacher is serious. If Mills is found guilty, he could face “a fairly lengthy jail sentence,” criminal defence lawyer Edward Prutschi said.
But Prutschi also pointed out that several questions about the fatal incident – and whether or not other individuals are to blame – remain unanswered.
“(You’ve) got a single person charged. That’s going to raise a lot of questions because I think many people are asking, ‘Is it really possible, is it really plausible, that a teacher – a single teacher – makes this call by him or herself? Where is the school board on this? Where is the principal? How many other teachers were involved in this trip?’”
After Perry’s death, the TDSB changed its policy to ensure that school principals, parents and students themselves know who has passed or failed the required tests prior to field trips.
Ontario’s former education minister announced last summer that the province would increase funding to life-saving swimming programs, and raise awareness about those programs specifically to incoming Canadian residents.
It added that it will now resume its internal investigation, which was suspended last year at the direction of the OPP.
Toronto Mayor John Tory, when asked for his thoughts on the charges, told reporters that he believes that everyone, including governments and school boards, has an obligation to keep kids safe.
“And so, I think that was a lesson to us when that happened, that as much as we may want to bring joy to kids to be able to go on trips, we have to take all the precautions of making sure when they go that they are going to be safe,” he said.
The OPP conducted a thorough investigation of the incident, which included more than 100 interviews and one search warrant, before laying the charge, Yarmel said.
