Will Archbishop of Canterbury's residential school apology include any of Church of England's $13B in assets?
CBC
The Archbishop of Canterbury says his apology for the "terrible crime" the Anglican Church allowed at residential schools will be followed by action — but it's unclear whether that will include any of the Church of England's estimated assets of $13 billion Cdn.
"I don't run it. I can't just go home and write a cheque," Rev. Justin Welby told reporters Saturday after hearing emotional stories from survivors at the James Smith Cree Nation, located 200 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon. Welby is the religious leader of the Church of England, but its head is the British monarch.
Saturday afternoon, Welby apologized for the church allowing and turning a blind eye to "hell" for so many Indigenous children for more than a century. He promised to take action.
"I am sorry. I am more sorry than I can say. I am ashamed. I am horrified," he said.
Welby is expected to spend Sunday in Prince Albert, Sask. saying mass and then hearing from more survivors before an event in Toronto Monday.
This week, Saskatoon Cree lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission general counsel Donald Worme said his research with the commission indicated total assets of the Church of England to be at least $13 billion Cdn. That includes more than 42,000 hectares of real estate in Great Britain alone, much of it in the highest-priced districts of London.
The Anglican Church of Canada paid out $15 million in compensation under a 2006 agreement to settle billions in lawsuits, but then got a refund of $2.8 million after the Roman Catholic Church negotiated a side deal, altering the formula. The Anglican Church of Canada said it invested the refund into Indigenous ministry programs.
Worme and survivors say the compensation may have been legal, but it was paltry and wrong, considering the devastation imposed on 150,000 survivors and their descendants. The Anglican Church ran roughly three dozen residential schools in Canada and more than 150 Indian day schools.
Welby called the compensation a "significant contribution" because the Canadian branch of the Church is not rich.
Welby said Worme's $13-billion estimate is "not entirely accurate," but then admitted the amount of wealth controlled by the Church's commissioners is "around that."
Welby said much of it is tied up in pension funds, legal requirements and roughly 15,000 trust accounts "which also makes life a bit difficult."
He said they hope to take action in the coming months on commemoration and other educational issues, but talk of any compensation "is going to take longer because the legal complications are indescribable."
Welby also said survivors in Canada are not the only consideration: he noted the Anglican Church and other religious institutions have harmed Indigenous communities in the Caribbean, Australia and elsewhere.
WATCH | Anglican Church leader apologizes for church's role in permitting residential school abuses:
It's small things, like a cigarette or a pair of clean socks, Rachel Montour says, that can go a long way to make you feel more human when you’re out on the street.
Several dozen members of Windsor's Chaldean community and its supporters celebrated in the cold at the corner of Marentette Avenue and Wyandotte Street East Friday, as city officials gave a secondary name to the section of Marentette between Wyandotte and Tuscarora Street: Chaldean Way.
Allison Hill says she tries to make people’s experience at the Thunder Bay Food Bank “as pleasant as possible.”
Two years after a man went missing in Scarborough, Toronto police are renewing the investigation in hopes that the public will bring forward more information.
A musical instrument created in Guelph, Ont., has been thrust onto the international stage — or rather, screen.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.
A man barricaded in a former church in Welland, Ont., was taken into custody early Saturday, nearly 24 hours into a standoff that began over a fence dispute.
Peel police are investigating after a Friday night shooting in Mississauga left one person dead, police said.
Another busy construction season has come to an end in London, and the city is already looking ahead to next spring when a slew of new projects are expected to begin.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.
Tens of thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers are waking up without power on Saturday morning after high winds and rain hit the province on Friday night.