Abuse at Native residential schools in Canada
Developments from 1998 to 2002
Recent developments: 1998 to the present: |
1998-JAN-06: Ministry of Indian Affairs apology: See our
essay "Federal government apologies: 1998 &
2008" for details.
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1998-OCT-27: United Church moderator issues apology: The Right
Reverend Bill Phipps, Moderator of The United Church of Canada read an
apology directed to former students of United Church Indian Residential
Schools, their families and communities. It said, in part:
"As
Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that
many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The
United Church of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our
church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We
are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of
assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we
are truly and most humbly sorry." 1
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1999-JUL-10: Some lawyers viewed as exploiting victims: According to an article
in the Globe and Mail, Toronto, ON, Native leaders are concerned about the
excessive gouging by lawyers who swoop into native communities and recruit
clients. They allegedly charge fees as high as 40%. The Law Society of
Saskatchewan has passed new rulings in an attempt to control the situation.
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2000-JAN-26: Anglican Synod may face financial bankruptcy:
According to the Toronto Star: The General
Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada has been named in more than 300
lawsuits by more than 1,000 claimants. According to Archdeacon Jim Boyles,
the church's general secretary, the claims total hundreds of millions of
dollars and far exceed the church's assets. Many of the claims of sexual
abuse, physical abuse, and cultural assimilation are alleged to have
occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, before the church had insurance coverage
to covered these forms of abuse. Boyles said: "Our main goal as a church is healing and
reconciliations for the damage done by residential school experiences."
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2000-FEB-11: Allegations of
abuse in British Columbia: Hundreds of former students of two former residential schools on Vancouver
Island have started a class-action lawsuit against the Anglican Church,
the United Church and the Federal Government. Some plaintiffs allege that
they were sexually abused in St. Michael's Residential School which
the Anglican Church ran in Alert Bay from 1921 to 1969. The rest allege
that they were abused at Alberni Indian Residential School which
was run by the United Church (or the churches that merged to form the
United Church) from 1891 to 1973.
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2000-APR-26: Natives ridiculed for taking residential school settlements:
According to the National Post: The money that some native individuals have
received in residential school sex abuse lawsuits was considered
"dirty" by other natives. Several hundred men who attended Gordon's
School in Saskatchewan received out-of-court settlements from the
federal government. This residential school was run by the government
without church involvement.
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2000-MAY: Public
opinion poll: The Angus Reid Group polled 1,500 Canadians for their
attitudes towards residential school cases. Results were:
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80% believe that the churches should be saved from going into
bankruptcy.
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18% agreed that they should go into bankruptcy if necessary to pay the
judgments.
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58% said that the government should pay most of the legal damages.
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2000-MAY-4: Anglican Church council meeting: According to the
Anglican News Service:
"The Anglican Church's national executive council began
four days of meetings...[in Fredricton, NB] attempting to
balance hope for the church's future with the stark
possibility of looming bankruptcy for the national
structure. An internal study
indicates that legal costs from residential schools
lawsuits will exhaust the resources of the General
Synod, the church's national body, during 2001. Those costs have already
totaled about $1.5 million in 1999 and legal fees to
March 31, 2000 reached $112,000."
Archdeacon Jim Boyles, the church's General Secretary, reported:
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"Claims continue to arise. There are about 1,600 plaintiffs now involving the Anglican Church, out of
the 7,000 involving the Government of Canada."
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"About 100 of the Anglican-related cases involve an abuser who has been convicted in criminal court..."
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Archdeacon Boyles said the churches have been meeting with government figures to address an agreed goal of continuing the
viability of the church organizations. A paper on the assets and structure of General Synod...has been approved by the
church's finance committee and presented to government officials. 2
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2000-MAY-22: Anglican church
may declare bankruptcy: According to
ReligionToday:
The Anglican Church of Canada is Canada's second largest Protestant
denomination, after the United Church of Canada. It has
about 800,000 members and about 7 million dollars in assets. But about
1,600 Native Canadians have pressed claims totaling about 1 billion
dollars against the denomination as compensation for physical and sexual
abuse at the church's residential schools. Anglican Archbishop Michael Peers said:
"If bankruptcy becomes inevitable, we really are called to be the
body of Christ. Dead. Absolutely dead. And just as absolutely destined to
rise."
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2000-MAY-28: Archbishop Michael Peers issues pastoral letter:
"...resulting from abuse in the residential schools, there are over
1,600 claims of varying kinds brought against the General Synod of the
Anglican Church of Canada. About one hundred cases involve the proven abuse
of children, and the perpetrators are in prison. The costs of litigation and
settlements for these alone is sufficient to exhaust all the assets of the
General Synod and of some dioceses involved." 2
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2000-JUN-20: Class Action Information Form: Thompson Rogers, a law
firm in Toronto, ON, filed a statement of claim re: abuse in residential
schools. They have made a Class Action Information Form available on their
web site at: http://www.thomsonrogers.com/StatementOfClaim.pdf.
This is an Acrobat PDF file. You can obtain a free software to read these
files from Adobe
Acrobat.
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2000-JUN-20: Native man completes 2,400 km trek: Robert Desjarlais left
his home in Edmonton, AL, on MAY-1 and walked to Parliament Hill in Ottawa,
ON. He walked barefoot for the last 100 miles - one mile for each year from
1900 to 2000 that aboriginal people have been denied justice. He sought education programs to restore lost aboriginal languages and
restore some of the cultural damage caused by residential schools. He also
wants more recognition for aboriginal war veterans. He alleges that he was
the victim of sexual and
physical abuse by a priest at the Muskowekwan Residential School in
Lestock, SK. between the ages of about seven to nine.
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2000-JUL-12: Oblate Order offers to turn over assets to government: The
Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate offered to give their assets to the
federal government, if Ottawa would assume their total liability. They face about
2,000 lawsuits and estimate their potential liability to be $90 million (CDN;
about $60 million in U.S. funds) At the present rate, they speculate that the lawyers will get
all of their assets, leaving nothing for the victims.
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2000-AUG-13: Canada:
Major churches hit with lawsuit: According to the Toronto Star:
Thomson Rogers, a law firm from Toronto has launched a $10 billion dollar
class action lawsuit (about 6.5 billion in U.S. funds) on behalf of
Canadian aboriginal peoples for their pain and suffering experienced at
church-run residential schools. Defendants in the lawsuit are the Government
of Canada, and the four Christian denominations who operated the schools. All are accused of
physical, emotional and sexual abuse of their students. 3
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2000-DEC-5: Christian Brothers allegedly hid assets: The Star Phoenix newspaper
[Saskatoon (SK)], reported that senior leaders of the Christian brothers
in Rome transferred ownership of some of the teaching order's assets out of
Canada in order to prevent millions of dollars from being liquidated. The Christian
Brothers ran the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland. They were found guilty of
incredible numbers of instances of sexual and physical abuse of students during the
1970's. Most were non-Aboriginal. The court ordered
their assets sold in order to compensate their victims. There
are also allegations that Roman Catholic officials in Vancouver tried to help the Christian Brothers shield additional
assets in the form of two Vancouver schools.
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2001-MAR-30: Residential Schools Update #9 by the Anglican Church:
The report states:
"...the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples
endorsed a Plan of Anglican Work in Support of A New Partnership Between
Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Anglicans: 'A New Agape.'...As of mid-March,
the General Synod had been named directly in cases involving 605 plaintiffs
(the government has also be named in every one of these cases). The General
Synod has been named by third party action by the government involving an
additional 386 plaintiffs. There are also three potential class actions
where 364 plaintiffs are identified, and there is potential for many more if
the class actions are certified....the General Synod will run out of funds
for litigation sometime this year if there is no agreement with the
government that will stop this outflow."
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2002: Federal office created: The federal government has
created the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution of Canada
to deal with the claims. It has an annual budget of $56-million. "Federal-government
officials have said they expect to spend more than $1-billion in legal
fees and settlements." 4
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2002-SEP: Lawsuit totals: The federal Justice
Department has stated that 70 to 100 residential-school lawsuits arrive
each month. Complaints against schools in Alberta are the most common at
4,000 cases to date; Saskatchewan is second at over 3,000. 26
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2002-OCT: National class-action lawsuit: This has been
launched, seeking 12.5 billion dollars in Canadian funds as compensation
for abuse. This would pay out on the order of $137,000 per claimant.
This is equivalent to about 8.2 billion dollars total and $90,000 per
claimant in US funds. 4
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2002-OCT-24: Judge limits lawsuits: Mr. Justice Terrence
McMahon in Court of Queen's Bench ruled that the Anglican
Church of Canada did not have any direct involvement in the schools.
Thus the national church cannot be sued by persons alleging abuse at
residential schools in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. They could
only sue the church's Missionary Society -- a group that has
little money and few assets. This means that essentially all claims will
have to be paid by the federal government. However, the judge ruled that
students who went to schools before 1923 and after 1969 which were run
by the Anglican dioceses of Calgary and Athabasca can initiate lawsuits
against those dioceses. 4
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2002-OCT-25: Anglican Church offer: Ralph Goodale, is the
Federal minister responsible for the residential-schools issue. He will
explain to the federal cabinet an offer from the Anglican Church of
Canada. It is intended to settle the church's liability over abuse
in its aboriginal residential schools. Details of the offer have
not been released to the public. However, speculation is that it
includes cash settlements and a healing program which would involve the
church, government and former students. 5
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Subsequent developments: See essays on
Government apology & compensation and Federal
government apologies: 1998 & 2008
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References used for the above essay:
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The Right Reverend Bill Phipps, "[Apology] To former students of United
Church Indian Residential Schools, and to their families and communities"
at: http://www.uccan.org/
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"Bankruptcy like Good Friday, Primate tells council, as mounting lawsuits threaten financial
viability," Anglican News Service, 2000-MAY-4
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D.J. MacKinnon, "Church warned of rough road," Toronto
Star, Toronto, ON, Canada. 2000-AUG-13, Page A4
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"Judge throws out lawsuits against Anglican Church seeking redress for
abuse," The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada, 2002-OCT-25, Page A15.
- Michael Valpy, "Anglican Church offers plan to settle abuse cases," The
Globe and Mail, Toronto, ON, 2002-OCT-26, Page A5.
Copyright © 2000 to 2014 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2001-JUN-03
Latest update: 2014-MAR-30
Author: B.A. Robinson 
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