How Catholics Avoided Paying Millions in Reparations for Residential Schools

On Friday, my colleague Elisabetta Povoledo spoke with some members of the Indigenous delegation, after Pope Francis ended a series of meetings with Canada’s indigenous people with an apology for the role played by the Roman Catholic Church in the infamous residential school system. got a chance to do it. ,

Elisabetta, who lives in Rome but grew up in Winnipeg, spent most of the week following the delegates. She told me on Friday that the mood was “very upbeat” at her hotel and during a press conference after the final papal audience.

“The Pope’s words today were historic, of course,” said Cassidy Caron, president of the Metis National Council. “They were essential, and I deeply appreciate them.” She continued, “And I now look forward to the Pope’s visit to Canada, where he can directly offer those sincere words of apology to our survivors and their families whose acceptance and healing ultimately matters most.”

The repairs were made under a landmark settlement in 2006 of a class-action lawsuit brought by alumni. Most of the 4.7 billion Canadian dollars paid as compensation to indigenous peoples came from the federal government. Protestant churches paid about 9.2 million Canadian dollars.

But the Catholic Church, which operates about 70 percent of the more than 130 schools, paid only 1.2 million of the 25 million Canadian dollars it agreed to raise as compensation in the form of cash contributions.

In 2013, the federal government challenged millions of dollars in legal and administrative fees the Catholic Church intended to count as part of its settlement payments in the Court of the Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan.

Disagreement over a proposed settlement of that case sparked a legal chain reaction. During this, a lawyer for the church told the court that the Catholic fundraising campaign had come up with only 3.9 million Canadian dollars for settlement—about 1.3 million of which was paid to a private fundraising company. It is not clear what happened to the rest.

The government argued that, in exchange for a payment of 1.2 million Canadian dollars from the church, it agreed to settle the dispute over the church’s claim for the fees. However, lawyers for the church said the relatively small payment was meant to relieve the church of all settlement obligations, including 25 million Canadian dollars.

Last October, CBC and The Globe and Mail reported based on newly released documents that the judge sided with Church. The decision allowed the church to walk away with its reparation payments.

The federal government then began appealing the court’s decision, only to drop it.

Among the many who fell last fall from the revelation was Mark Miller, the minister responsible for Indigenous relations, who, like all members of the Liberal government, believes the church should have held to its commitment of 25 million Canadian dollars.

“As everyone else, I am shocked by this,” Mr Miller told The Canadian Press in November, paying particular attention to his confusion over the government’s decision to end the appeal. He said, ‘I want to get to the bottom of it.

On Friday, I asked Mr. Miller what his office had found. It turns out that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s conservative government, in its final months, struck a deal with the church that limited the church’s payments to 1.2 million Canadian dollars.

In September 2015, weeks before a federal election, Mr. Harper’s Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Bernard Walcourt, ordered officials to drop the appeal and release the church from its financial obligations in exchange for a payment of 1.2 million Canadian dollars.

After the Conservatives’ electoral defeat and five days before Justin Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in, government officials implemented Mr. Walcourt’s order in October 2015.

“This was the decision of the previous Conservative government,” Miller’s spokesman Justin LeBlanc wrote in an email. “We cannot speculate about their internal decision-making process.”

In September the Canadian Catholic Episcopal Conference announced that it would conduct a second fundraising effort with the goal of collecting Canadian dollars 30 million over five years. Rather than engaging in a national effort, it would rely on each of the church’s 73 diocese to raise funds locally. In late January, the conference established a charity to collect and manage the funds.

On Friday, I asked the conference whether any local fundraising efforts had begun and how much money, if any, had been raised. The group did not respond to my inquiries.

• In the latest development in a never-ending series of investigations and allegations related to sexual inappropriateness within Canada’s military, former top military commander Jonathan Vance pleaded guilty this week to obstruction of justice. Mr Vance was granted a leave to protect himself from a criminal record in the case, which stemmed from a military police investigation into allegations that he had engaged in sexual misconduct during his time as chief of defense staff.

• Canadian impresario, Garth Drabinsky, who was convicted of fraud and forgery and sentenced to five years in prison, is back on Broadway.

• Valerie Lemercier spoke with Elizabeth Vincentelli about the making of “Aline”, her fictional story about the life of Celine Dion.

• A new Netflix documentary, “Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King,” explores the story of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX founder Gerald W. Given. money.

• Caiden Ricci, a 10-year-old boy in Montreal who has been diagnosed with autism, is using the Cutrobot as a friend and teacher, writes Alina Tugend.

• In real estate, Shivani Vora writes that, among buyers around the world, Canada is “popular and well-regarded for its golfs and golf houses.”

A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

how are we doing?
We look forward to hearing your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.

Like this email?
Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here.