Canadian bishops pledged $30M for residential school survivors. Will they hit the target?

Bishops are preparing for the impending arrival of Pope Francis, who is expected to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church's role in operating residential schools.

When 48 Catholic church entities signed on to fundraise $25 million for survivors under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, it was spelled out they would do so through their “best efforts.”

Ken Young puts it another way.

“It was a weasel clause,” the former Manitoba regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations said in a recent interview.

“And they used it.”

In total, that fundraising campaign raised less than $4 million. It made up one piece of the compensation package Catholic entities agreed to pay under the settlement struck in 2006 with Ottawa, former students and Indigenous leaders.

Nine years later, a Saskatchewan judge ruled that the church bodies – who had sought to relieve themselves of their remaining obligations – could indeed walk away.

“They said, ‘We used our best efforts and we failed,”’ recalled Young, who is himself a survivor of residential schools.

“I was disappointed.”