Canadian Church Abuse of Natives

[Guest guest]

Canadian Church faces ruin over

sex cases

http://www.the-

times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/24/timfgncda01001.html

FROM BEN MACINTYRE IN WASHINGTON

THE Anglican Church of Canada has laid off staff and

slashed its budget in an attempt to avert bankruptcy from

lawsuits filed by native Americans alleging sexual and

cultural abuse in church-run boarding schools.

 

The Church, with 2.2 million members the third-largest

denomination in Canada, is facing 350 suits from 1,600

plaintiffs, most of whom allege that church authorities

failed to stop sex abuse in its boarding schools and tried

to assimilate Indians into white culture by eroding

indigenous language, religion and traditions.

 

The suits have cost the Anglican Church more than C$2.4

million (£1 million) in legal fees. This week Anglican

leaders cut the budget by more than 10 per cent after its

accountants said that at the present rate the Church would

be bankrupt by next year.

 

To deal with its spiralling legal costs, the Anglican Synod,

with assets of C$10.3 million (£4.7 million) has scaled

back charitable work, but the Church still faces millions in

damages. Only one of the lawsuits has been settled to

date, in an out-of-court agreement.

 

A single class-action suit in Ontario is claiming C$2.8

billion (£1.2 billion) for abuses suffered by all former

students of church-run boarding schools in Canada.

 

The courts have ruled that the Government shares

responsibility with the Anglican, Roman Catholic,

Presbyterian and United Churches of Canada for abuses

at religious schools, but so far Jean Chrétien, Canada's

Prime Minister, has rejected appeals for the federal

authorities to contribute to a settlement.

 

Several thousand suits have been filed against the

churches and the federal government over the residential

school system. The Anglican Church ran 37 such schools,

closing the last one in 1969. The Catholic Church faces

suits from more than 4,000 plaintiffs.

 

Former students in church boarding schools for Indians

claim that the brutal educational regime specifically sought

to erase native culture. In 1908, the Canadian Minister for

Indian Affairs pronounced the need to remove "the Indian

from his primitive state, raising him up and making of him

an honest citizen".