Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.
Anger toward the Catholic Church in Canada is mounting after more than 1,000 unmarked graves were recently found at Catholic-run residential school sites, while the church continues to claim it cannot pay the $25 million it promised to survivors of the schools in 2005.
Over the last week, there have been reports of several Catholic churches burning in British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia, nationwide protests and boycotts have been organized, and Saskatoon’s downtown cathedral has been marked with small handprints in red paint.
Many are hoping that the current pressure will result in the church making the $25 million payment that it promised residential school survivors in the Indian Residential School Survivor Agreement, signed in 2005. As part of the agreement the Catholic Church promised to raise the funds to compensate tens of thousands of survivors for the emotional, physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition, cultural shaming, and systemic violations of basic human rights suffered in Catholic-run residential schools, CBC Canada reported.
However, over the last decade the church has insisted it has tried to raise the funds and has not been able to. So far, Catholics across Canada have donated less than $4 million.
Meanwhile, a new $28.5 million cathedral has been built by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon.
“They should go back. They should raise the money, and then some. There is a spiritual and moral deficit here,” Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a former Saskatchewan provincial court judge and current director of the University of British Columbia’s Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, told CBC Canada.
“You can’t always fix a mistake, but now is the time to try.”
The federal government has taken the church to court over the lack of payment, and in turn the church hired some of the country’s best lawyers who argued the institution – thought to be worth billions – had nothing left to give, CBC Canada reported.
Turpel-Lafond said that the church had betrayed survivors by using high-priced lawyers to get out of making the payment, and the entire case was “an embarrassment to the legal profession in Saskatchewan,” and should be reviewed by the attorney general.
“They manipulated the legal system to their advantage. They found a legal back door. I know how that works out when it comes to issues for Indigenous people in Saskatchewan, and in Canada.”
Tell us your thoughts on the Catholic Church’s failure to fundraise for the $25 million it promised in 2005 in the comments below.
Don’t Miss Out!
Check out our list of Class Action Lawsuits and Class Action Settlements you may qualify to join!
Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:
