The failure of the Catholic Church's fundraising efforts for aboriginal healing and reconciliation means that other churches involved in the notorious residential schools have been let off the hook for more than $3-million in contributions.
The Catholic fundraising program collected just $3.7-million toward its $25-million goal. This reduced the totals required from the Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches, because each had signed a deal with the federal government that linked their contributions to aboriginal healing to those of the Catholics.
Catholic organizations ran most of the residential schools, and had the largest financial obligations of any church under Canada's 2007 settlement that ended thousands of individual and class-action lawsuits. The federal government spent an estimated $5-billion directly compensating 79,000 survivors.
The Anglican Church was allowed to keep $2.7-million it had raised for healing, and return it to local church communities. A church spokesman said many of those communities set up healing programs with their share of the money. The United Church was allowed to reduce its maximum obligation by $450,000, a church spokesman said. The Presbyterian Church had already put its maximum obligation of $1.3-million toward healing programs and therefore was contractually not in a position to receive anything back. The church says it effectively waived its right to get money back by spending it up front.
About 50 Catholic entities were obliged to use their "best efforts" to raise $25-million for healing and reconciliation. The $25-million was in addition to $29-million in cash for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and $25-million in services to aboriginal communities.
In an e-mail exchange with The Globe, the government declined to provide a direct answer on what it did to ensure the Catholic groups lived up to their best-efforts promise. "The supervising Courts remain the authority for determining whether the terms of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement have been met," said spokeswoman Valérie Haché of the Indigenous and Northern Affairs department.
The government says its agreement releasing the Catholics from their financial contributions is confidential, even though a researcher for The Globe and Mail found a draft of it in a public court file at the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench in Regina ...