The Yukon government has not found a need to develop a special process for dealing with civil lawsuits concerning victims of childhood sexual assault in public institutions, according to government sources.

'The Yukon government has not been involved in large numbers of child sexual assault cases,' Tom Ullyett, assistant deputy minister of legal services in the Department of Justice, said in an interview Friday afternoon.

The impending case of a former Takhini Elementary School student who is suing the government for sexual abuse he or she claims to have suffered at the hands of a teacher in the 1970s may be the herald of the next wave of such cases to move through the civil courts, a local lawyer has suggested.

The federal government has faced more than 1,000 civil suits concerning the sexual and physical abuse suffered by native children in residential schools. However, the territorial government has not dealt with many such cases so far, Ullyett said.

'There are thousands of lawsuits naming the federal government,' he said. 'In the Yukon, there are nowhere near the same number (of suits). Not even close.'

The federal government website created to explain the residential school resolution process states that more than 1,000 claims have been settled. The vast majority of these cases involved physical and sexual abuse.

Complainants seeking compensation from the federal government have the choice to either take their claim to court, or to settle out of court in a program called Alternative Dispute Resolution.

If there was a need for a specific process to settle civil suits regarding child sexual abuse in territorial government institutions, a request would be made to Justice Minister John Edzerza, Ullyett said.

'As far as I know, there has been no request made to the minister. Based on the number of cases, there is no demonstrated need.'

Dan Shier, the lawyer representing the former Whitehorse student, said there are currently six cases in development that involve suing YTG for child sexual abuse.

The next flood of suits is likely to come from public schools, group homes and detention centres for youth, he said.

The federal, territorial and provincial governments all deal with civil lawsuits as they provide services like education and foster homes, Ullyett says. Sometimes the cases deal with recent instances of abuse, sometimes the claims are historical.

'(YTG) treats each litigation of child sexual abuse on its own merit,' said Ullyett.

According to Shier, the case-by-base method employed by the government is not enough.

'There is no mechanism set up for settling these kinds of cases,' he said in an interview last week. 'The typical response from (the territorial government) is fight, fight, fight.'

With the court process being a difficult and painful step for plaintiffs in cases of sexual abuse, Shier said, both financial compensation and a public apology from government are important steps in the healing process.

In the case of the former Takhini Elementary student, YTG is being asked to pay damages as the abuse is said to have occurred in the workplace.

The government is being charged with a breach of care for failing to investigate the teacher and to protect the young student from the abuse.

The Yukon government has dealt with similar cases in the criminal justice system. Local educators have gone to trial and been convicted of sexually abusing students. This case, though, will be among the first to bring the issue to civil court.

All governments deal with cases of sexual and physical abuse, according to Ullyett, some of which are historical, some of which are recent.

The federal, territorial and provincial governments all encounter civil law suits because they provide services like education and foster homes, Ullyett pointed out.