Content area
Full Text
The Anglican Church has paid the victim in the first
residential schools judgment against the church.
The General Synod the church's national body
has paid both its and the Diocese of Cariboo's share of
damages to the plaintiff in the case involving a
sexual-abuse victim who attended St. George's Indian
Residential School in Lytton, B.C.
But both are still considering appealing the decision
that found the church responsible for 60 per cent of
damages owed.
If an appeal is successful, the money would be
recovered from the federal government, not the victim.
An appeal would not be about the total amount of
damages they were agreed on before the civil trial.
What the church is considering challenging is how much,
if anything, it owes, as opposed to the federal
government. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon
found Ottawa responsible for the other 40 per cent of
the undisclosed award. The perpetrator of the crime was
found guilty in an earlier criminal trial and is currently in
jail. He was a federal civil servant at the time of the
offences.
"We had expected that more responsibility would be
assigned to the government since it owned the school,
funded its operation and was primarily responsible for
appointing the principal and staff," Archdeacon Jim
Boyles said in a press release from the church's official
news agency.
The judgment also takes "a rather confusing
approach in lumping together the General Synod and the
Diocese of Cariboo as 'the church,'" he said. "Failing to
distinguish between them is like failing to distinguish
between the Government of Canada and the
Government of British Columbia, on the grounds that it's
all 'the government.'"
The school in Lytton was never owned by the
church. An English missionary company established it in
1901. However, the bishop of Cariboo had influence in
nominating senior staff to the school and the school was
treated as a parish of the diocese. Although the
perpetrator of the sexual abuse was a caregiver, his
supervisor was the principal and an Anglican deacon,
later a priest. The principal was also suspected of
abusing children although he was cleared of such
charges at a trial before his death.
General Synod...