Church woes in U.S. could help lawsuits in Canada

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A lawyer who represents about 10 per cent of the 700 Indian residential school lawsuits in British Columbia says the federal government has not made the settlement of the lawsuits a priority, but the delays may work in favor of his clients.

Robert Williamson, who maintains law offices in Calgary and Vernon, B.C. told Windspeaker the recent highly-publicized trouble the Catholic church has had in dealing with sexual abuse by priests in the United States has increased the credibility of residential school survivors in the eyes of the general public.

"The credibility factor of the complaints of sexual abuse at residential schools has increased substantially because of the American experience," the lawyer said. "When you get the Pope sending out messages to his priests, when it becomes such a critical issue within the church that the Pope is giving speeches on the issue, then just the general publicity affects the credibility of residential school claimants.

"The cases in the United States are, I think, helpful to the residential school cases in that they now show that problems with sexual abuse are now endemic. It just didn't happen in residential schools but it happened in many, many, many Catholic institutions. I think there are ingrained institutional problems within the Catholic church that have given rise to this kind of abuse. The cases in the United States are creating the kind of publicity so that now when a residential school survivor says. 'I was sexually abused,' now the public can say, 'I can understand that.'"

One of Williamson's clients, Virginia Baptiste- a 53-year-old Osoyoos Indian band member- filed her statement of claim five years ago and is tired of the lack of progress. She lost a younger brother last year who died too young because of the ravages of his residential school experiences which included, she said, sexual abuse.

Baptiste, known as "Virg" in her community, has produced a documentary about life in the Cranbrook residential school. "Survivors of the Red Brick School" will appear on APTN this fall, she said.

While Baptiste has taken the federal government and her own leadership to task for allowing things to drag on, her lawyer said federal officials have made some of the right moves.

"We're trying to find a model for an alternative dispute resolution that will be suitable to all the parties" [in Baptiste's particular case], he said. "If we can come up with a model, then we can process these claims a whole lot more quickly."

He said it was the government that initiated the meetings among plaintiff lawyers and lawyers for churches, adding so far there have been two "substantive meetings"-in May and July in Vancouver-involving all parties.

He said he didn't think the government was dragging its feet in the Baptiste case.

"Quite frankly they have made some concessions in the area of liability if we go with alternative dispute resolution as opposed to litigation. We're running up against limitation periods and things like that, except for sexual abuse in B.C. There is no limitations period in B.C. for sexual abuse," he said. "I think the disappointing thing over all . . . while the government, on the one hand, has to be complimented for taking the initiative, on the other hand there has been a lack of priority given to resolving the abuses that survivors of residential schools suffered by the government. There doesn't seem to be the political will to deal with these cases in an expeditious way. There needs to be some political will giving this issue some sort of priority.

"Many of the residential school survivors are starting to get into their 50s and 60s. Many of them have health problems arising directly from their residential school experience. Two of my clients have just recently passed on and a lot of my clients are concerned they're going to die before they ever see any resolution to these things."

The government has been distracted by other matters in the last year an that has meant that the residential school issue is not getting the attention it needs, he added.

"It seems the Liberal government is more concerned about the leader of their party and justifiably they're concerned about the international problems that exist in the world, but this is an issue that's been around for a long time," he said.

Three different cabinet members have been responsible for the issue in the last year. Former Deputy Prime Minister Herb Grey retired. His replacement, John Manley, was given an enormous workload. Recently, Metis Interlocutor Ralph Goodale was handed the task.

"It's been like a political football and it's been bounced around. But nobody at the senior level-at the Cabinet and minister level-nobody seems to have the fortitude, the political will to resolve these things," Williamson said.

The government has tried to limit the areas of compensation to sexual and physical abuse, but Williamson said many of his clients suffered serious harm even though they weren't sexually or physically abused.

"Primarily, what most of my clients are upset about is the loneliness, the isolation, the lack of quality education, the lack of good dietary habits, the lack of love, the inability to develop parental and social skills. Those kinds of things, plus the physical and sexual abuse," the lawyer said.

The government has arbitrarily ruled that cultural harm is not eligible for compensation. But Williamson argues that language loss-imposing Christianity on the children involved forcing them to give up their traditional language and culture-led to unnecessary loneliness and a sense of helplessness in the students and that led to other problems.

Baptiste's private war to speed up the process has been widespread. A letter she wrote to a local newspaper, the Oliver Chronicle, prompted a response from a woman who wrote that residential school survivors should "get on with their lives and quit whining." That letter led to several other angry responses-fom Native and non-Native people in the region- backing the survivors in their quest for justice.

She also pressed her local council and tribal council and this news publication to keep the pressure on the government to deal with the issue. When Windspeaker told her we had already published many stories about residential schools and would report any new developments, she responded, "But nothing's happening!" That's the whole point."

She also attended an Okanagan Nation Alliance annual meeting on Aug. 17 to lobby the chiefs directly and convince them to be more active.

"I got a resolution," she said after that meeting.

The resolution called for a committee of volunteer technical and political leaders to be struck to provide better support for the survivors. There is, in the resolution, an admission that the chiefs realized they needed to do more on this matter.

"Be it therefore resolved that the Okanagan chiefs and councils review the areas of social justice, restorative justice, cultural revitalization, all aspects of health, education and community development, so that leadership will be able to have a solid political and media relations strategy that will enable the leadership to take a full and active role in advocating for survivors who have to now only had very limited resources and advocating services to support them during their quest for justice and healing," it read.

Baptiste was delighted with the chiefs' response.

"I told them we've been manipulated and controlled by the government for so long that we need their public support. It's vital and necessary that we get their active help. I'm tired and the government's putting a standstill on everything and it's time that you people did something about it, I told them."