NEWS STORY: Canada’s Catholic Schools Fight Bankruptcy in Sex Scandal Case

c. 2000 Religion News Service VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ The future of two prestigious Greater Vancouver Roman Catholic schools has turned grimmer this month as the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear their appeal of a decision clearing the way to liquidate their assets. But Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate, both run […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ The future of two prestigious Greater Vancouver Roman Catholic schools has turned grimmer this month as the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear their appeal of a decision clearing the way to liquidate their assets.

But Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate, both run by the Christian Brothers order, are far from giving up their battle against declaring bankruptcy to compensate scores of victims from Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland, the scene of Canada’s most notorious church-sex case.


David Wingfield, lawyer for the Toronto liquidator the courts have assigned to sell off the assets of the Christian Brothers to pay $68 million in compensation to the Newfoundland victims, said that parents should know the education of 1,600 students at the two Catholics schools is at great risk.

He claimed victory after the nation’s top court on Nov. 16 refused to reconsider what he called the “landmark” Ontario Court of Appeal ruling earlier this year.

That decision determined that Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate are not protected from liquidation because they may be part of a special educational trust.

John Nixon, spokesman for the two private schools, said, “We’re disappointed with the Supreme Court of Canada decision. But we’re still determined to win this. We are not going to give up.”

He said that a key legal avenue is still available through British Columbia courts.

The four-year-old legal battle, which pits victims of abuse on the Atlantic coast against Catholic private school students on the Pacific Coast, has been through two courts in Ontario, where the religious order has been based, as well as the British Columbia Supreme Court.

The two schools, which are together worth more than $40 million, are far more valuable than the order’s other assets.

The coast-to-coast legal struggle revolves around lawsuits filed against 10 Christian Brothers who abused Newfoundland orphans in their care in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Some of the brothers ended up teaching for a brief time at St. Thomas More Collegiate and Vancouver College.


Although Nixon had earlier expressed confidence that the schools would convince the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their appeal of the Ontario decision, he said the court’s ruling would become irrelevant if the schools end up winning their appeal of an August decision by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Risa Levine.

The schools’ lawyers maintain that Levine made a mistake when she decided that the shares in Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate are owned by four Christian Brothers on behalf of their order, which would make them subject to liquidation.

The schools will maintain on appeal, Nixon said, that the Christian Brothers own the shares as individuals.

Just as the schools tried to take the Ontario Appeal Court decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, Nixon said they’re also prepared to appeal any British Columbia decisions to the nation’s top court.

Douglas Garbig, court-appointed lawyer for the victims, said the former Mount Cashel residents are “elated not only that they won in court … today, but that an end is now in sight.”

Garbig said that after waiting years for compensation, the victims want the schools to stop spending “tens of thousands of dollars a day on lawyers’ fees and going from litigation to litigation. This case is over. We’re not thugs. We’re not going to move into the schools and drag students out of their desks. We’ll do this in a civilized manner.”


DEA END TODD

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