Catholic Church has proved difficult to work with, says healing group

The Catholic Entities say they do not owe money to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation says the Catholic Entities are $1.6 million short in fulfilling their commitment under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. And the federal government says it “is working with the Catholic Entities to ensure their obligations towards the Aboriginal Healing Foundation are met.”

In an email interview, Michelle Perron, spokesperson with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, didn’t say what that “obligation” was or what steps the government was taking.

Mike DeGagne, executive director with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, said the funds outstanding represent 10 per cent of the $16.6 million obligation the Catholic Entities has toward the foundation.

In the settlement agreement, the Catholic Entities and United, Presbyterian and Anglican churches were directed to provide funds for in-kind services, to start a national fundraising campaign, and to provide healing programs for Indian residential school survivors.

Eighty per cent of the money for healing programs was to go to the healing foundation, paid in instalments, with the foundation distributing funding to community-based organizations to deliver healing programs to residential school survivors.

The AHF was created in 1989 by the federal government.

The payments the churches were directed to make were proportional to the number of Indian residential schools they operated and which were recognized through the settlement agreement. The Catholic Entities accounts for two-thirds of those schools.
The Catholic Entities were to make full payment to the healing foundation by Sept. 19, 2012. That has not happened, said DeGagne. The Catholic Entities are claiming administrative hardship as the reason for not paying, he said, and they have asked for mediation under the settlement agreement to be absolved of the remaining money owing.

“The (government) have pushed back to say, ‘No, we’re not going into mediation on this. It’s not necessary under the agreement,’” said DeGagne.

In a brief email response, Pierre Baribeau, counsel for the Catholic Entities, said there is no “such final payment” owing and that “there is a disagreement with Canada. Therefore this disagreement is now being processed.”

Baribeau points to clause 3.12 in schedule O-3, the Catholic Entities Church Agreement, of the settlement agreement, which refers to “reasonable administration costs of the Corporation” and further states in a subpoint  that “the reasonable administration costs of operating the Corporation may, with the consent in writing of the Government, be paid from the capital amount held by the Corporation. The Government may not unreasonably withhold the consent referred to in this Section.”

DeGagne said the healing foundation has had a rocky relationship with the Catholic Entities throughout and because healing services have to be offered as a commitment and the foundation anticipated difficulties getting full funding from the Catholic Entities, the healing foundation worked that lesser amount into its budget when committing to fund its contracted treatment centres up to Dec. 31, 2013.

“The (Catholic) church under the settlement agreement has been a very difficult partner to work with,” said DeGagne. “Their payments to date have been very erratic.”

The other three churches, he said, “have been exemplary. They take their mission respective to the residential schools very seriously. They are very moral and ethical people to deal with. They have invested the money to be further involved with reconciliation activities and you don’t ever get the sense they’re defending their position or trying to shirk their responsibility.”

As the foundation is not a signatory to the settlement agreement, it has no recourse in pushing the Catholic Entities to pay. However, DeGagne said, the federal government has been working toward that end.

“The government of Canada [has] been very stern with the church,” he said. “I anticipate that if everybody holds their position that this will eventually have to go back to the courts to make a determination.”

Even though the foundtion will cease operating by mid-2014, a casualty of federal funding cuts, DeGagne said an entity will be put in place, such as the Legacy of Hope, a charity which serves the interests of residential schools survivors, that can collect the final payment from the Catholic Entities and ensure the money is used for healing programs as it was intended.