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Jul 3, 2013 03:09:49 PM
The Canadian Press and Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press
MONTREAL – A judge has signed off on a landmark agreement to compensate victims of sex abuse that occurred for decades within a Roman Catholic organization in Quebec.
While walking away from news crews outside the courtroom, one victim said the grieving could finally begin.
The $18-million mediated settlement, the largest in Quebec and one lawyers have said could even be the largest ever in Canada, was officially enacted as Quebec Superior Court Justice Claude Auclair signed the agreement Wednesday.
But there were no cheers as Auclair signed the document — only silence as a five-year legal odyssey came to a close.
Victims will be paid by July 24 and will be awarded an indemnity ranging from $10,000 and $250,000, depending on the type of abuse they endured at three Quebec institutions. The agreement stems from an out-of-court mediated settlement, spurred by the threat of a class-action lawsuit.
Victims are still angry that many of the 223 claimants were forced to make their case before adjudicators and describe the abuse they faced.
The class-action lawsuit was formally launched in 2008 and a settlement was reached in October 2011.
The rest of the legal wrangling took nearly 18 months and lawyers lamented the slow process of finalizing the deal. One lawyer said more than half the claims — 126 out of 206 — went before an adjudicator.
“The process should have taken three months and it took 15,” said Alain Arsenault, one of the lawyers that represented the victims. He accused lawyers for the congregation of using stalling tactics and citing prior criminal history.
“They contested with no proof but they contested all the same,” Arsenault fumed. “They deposited documents that had nothing to do with the abuse … but they never brought any proof to deny the claims except in one case.”
The Congregation of Holy Cross issued a release expressing condolences for decades of abuse at three Quebec institutions that are now defunct — Montreal’s College Notre-Dame between 1950 and 2001; College Saint-Cesaire, located south of Montreal, between 1950 and 1991; and Ecole Notre Dame in the Lower St. Lawrence region, between 1959 and 1964.
Jean-Pierre Aumont, the Canadian provincial superior of the congregation, apologized again on Wednesday “for the suffering caused by the teachers and staff who held a position of trust and authority with students, and my deepest sympathy to the victims of such abuse.”
“Such actions should never have happened,” he said in a statement.
Victims hope the agreement will lead to other ones in Quebec and elsewhere for sex-abuse victims from other congregations. They hope other diocese and religious orders might also settle and avoid lengthy legal battles in the future.
Sebastien Richard, a spokesman for the victims, said they had a message for other groups: “Keep fighting.”
In the end 206 victims, and in some cases their parents, will wind up sharing nearly $13 million.
The other $5 million will go to lawyers’ fees, adjudicators’ honorariums, and other expenses.
Seventeen people’s claims have not been accepted.
One of the victims’ lawyers, Gilles Gareau, accused the religious order’s lawyers of abusing the adjudicator process.
It meant having to recount in detail all of the crimes committed against them, said Gareau. He cited the case of one man, now 72, who had to describe horrific acts in front of six people.
“It’s not an easy thing — I had to prepare him judicially and psychologically and I had to pick up the pieces after the hearing,” Gareau said.
“I had to escort one of them because I was afraid he was going to kill himself on the way out.”
Arsenault said he was satisfied but concerned about the impact on the victims. The settlement was designed to avoid having them relive their experiences.
“(There were) those who had to go before an adjudicator … and explain in detail the nature of the abuse to strangers when there was no one to contradict their claims,” said Arsenault.
He estimated that 97 per cent of the cases that went before an adjudicator were accepted.
Holy Cross’ Aumont had already apologized once in a video posted in 2011. On Wednesday, a statement sent via a public-relations firm expressed hope for a brighter future for victims.
“The damage has been done, and we were committed to act diligently to repair it,” Aumont said. “We hope that the (agreement) helps the victims make a fresh start, that they heal as best they can from the injuries they suffered and can work wholeheartedly toward their future.”
A lawyer for the congregation said the adjudication step was designed to give equal treatment to all victims in a reasonable time frame.
“The indemnification process is finalized and at this stage the Holy Cross congregation hopes that the victims will be able to go on with their lives,” said lawyer Eric Simard.
Richard said the money may not help some victims, who have been overwhelmed by the psychological scars.
Others have committed suicide. Many never came forward.
“It’s clear the 206 people we’re talking about is a sad minority of the total number of victims,” Richard said. “There were 40 aggressors identified by the victims and five of them are still alive today.”
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Settlement agreement finalized for Collège Notre-Dame abuse victims
“Such acts should never have happened,” Jean-Pierre Aumont, former provincial superior of Congregation of Ste-Croix says.
Photograph by: John Kenney , Gazette File Photo
MONTREAL — For 40 years, Luc-Richard Archambault stayed silent about the sexual abuse he suffered as a teenage student at a Quebec Catholic school.
On Wednesday, he sat quietly in a Montreal courtroom, watching intently as, with a quick signature, a superior court justice finalized a multimillion-dollar settlement between a religious order and 206 people abused while students in its schools.
“I successfully hid it for 40 years in my mind. It woke up, and I’m going to put it back to sleep. I need to carry on and go onto something else,” said Luc-Richard Archambault
He was abused by a teacher for two years while a student at Collège Notre-Dame in Montreal in the 1970s.
The abuse began when he was 13 years old.
The $18-million settlement covers 206 men who were students at three Quebec schools operated by the Congregation of Ste-Croix — Collège Notre-Dame, Collège Saint-Cesaire and École Notre-Dame.
After three years in court, victims will receive their portion of the settlement — between $10,000 and $250,000 each — before the end of the month.
The settlement is the largest to be paid by a religious order in Canada.
“Such acts should never have happened,” Jean-Pierre Aumont, the order’s provincial superior said in a statement on Wednesday.
Aumont offered his “most sincere apologies for the suffering caused by the teachers and personnel who held a position of trust and authority.”
Archambault said he hopes that other victims of abuse will be able to use the case to launch similar actions.
“We opened our cases to serve as an example for future pursuits, for other congregations, because there are a lot more demons underneath the cassocks,” he said.
“I’m glad I did it, but the last three years of my life have been so painful,” he said.
During the long process, each of the victims had to recall before the court the exact details of the often long-term abuse they suffered.
“I’ve seen a lot of men cry,” Archambault said.
“It’s asking them to relive and tell in front of people they don’t know … the detail of the aggressions that they had to go through — and I do mean in detail,” Gareau said.
“So if we’re looking at sodomy, they had to explain the whole thing — how it happened, how often it happened, by whom, where, when, what the room looked like.”
Reliving those memories, in many cases still deeply-suppressed decades after the fact, was painful for many of the men who spoke, he said.
“I had one case where I had to escort the man home because I thought he was going to kill himself on the way out,” Gareau said.
The 72-year-old man had just described in court hundreds of instances of severe sexual abuse.
“It’s not an easy thing,” Gareau said. “I had to prepare him judicially, psychologically, and I had to pick up the pieces after the hearing.”
The lawsuit began in 2008, and the parties reached a settlement in late 2011.
It took another 18 months to sort out the details of that settlement.
The process could have been much shorter, said Gilles Gareau, one of the lawyers representing the victims.
He said the congregation’s lawyers had stalled the process unnecessarily.
After each victim testified, lawyers representing the congregation decided whether to accept or contest the allegations.
Lawyers for the church contested over half of the claims.
“Victims who provided very detailed explanations of the abuse they suffered had to come testify in person anyway,” Gareau said.
One of the contested claims was brought by a man who was living in Florida at the time of the lawsuit.
Without enough money to fly, he took three days to drive to Montreal, where the congregation’s lawyer called him to testify for ten minutes.
“They went into every little crack to make the procedure longer,” Archambault added.
René Cornellier, 80, began the case in 2008 on behalf of his son, who was sexually assaulted while a student at Collège Notre-Dame.
Cornellier said his son never spoke of the abuse.
It was only in reading letters his son left behind after his death in 1994 that he learned of the years of abuse, and of his son’s unsuccessful efforts to get the school to act.
His son wrote to the order several times, asking its directors to look into the abuse.
After reading the letters, in 2008, Cornellier said he organized a meeting with the school’s directors.
“At that point in time everybody denied knowing anything about it,” he said.
“We were not asking for anything other than an (apology) and an explanation,” Cornellier said.
“They refused even that to us. That’s what triggered the lawsuit,” he said.
Victims of sexual abuse, especially children, often do not report the crimes.
And at the time of the abuse, the Catholic Church was a figure of great moral authority in Quebec, so many of the victims were even less likely to speak up, explained Sébastien Richard, a spokesperson for the victims.
Carlo Tarini, a spokesperson for the Quebec Association of Victims of Priests, recalled a victim telling him about the day he decided to speak to his parents about the abuse.
“That weekend when he wanted to tell his parents, his mother told him ‘By the way, Brother X is coming over for supper on Sunday night — we’re so proud to have him over.’ And this was the brother who was the abuser,” Tarini said.
Only five of the alleged Ste-Croix abusers are still alive.
Two, Georges Sarrazin, 91, and Olivain Leblanc, 70, are facing criminal charges.
“Some of the victims, the stories I’ve heard, their lives were destroyed. Some are already dead, of suicide.” Archambault said.
“If I had a message to address to any victim that’s living with this secret now — come out,” he said.
“It’s part of the therapy, to get rid of the horrors.”
Finally! It took a long long time, but finally a settlement for the many who were sexually abused by members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Well done. I commend all of you who fought so long and hard for this day. I also commend those who have filed complaints with police and have had their molesters charged criminally. my thoughts and prayers are with you as these cases wind their way toward trial. Stay strong.
I see that a Georges Sarrazin, 91, and Olivain Leblanc are currently facing criminal charges. I don’t recall reading anything about charges being laid. Does anyone have any information about these two? I won’t be able to do any research on them until I am home from holiday mid month, but meanwhile any info that anyone can offer would be welcome.
Hi Sylvia,
I’m french-canadian so please forgive my difficulty in writing in english.
3 victims and 4 charges against Sarazin who taught and was in charge of discipline at College Notre-Dame from 1966-1980. One victim came forward against Leblanc and he proudly allocuted that the vast majority of St-Croix members are gay anyway and there is nothing wrong about it all… In Leblanc`s case, the College Notre-Dame, which was a private catholic school operated by the St-Croix paid 250 000 $ in exchange for the victim`s silence. That is (still) controversial because 1)the college used public funds to do it 2)witness tampering is illegal. The St-Croix now claim that the payout was an admistrative misunderstanding.
In 2010, the french CBC’s investigative journalism TV show Enquêtes did an exposé of the St-Croix:
http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/enquete/2010-2011/Reportage.asp?idDoc=120166 thanks to one brother/whistle-blower who did the right thing.
I wish to mention that it has also been disclosed that one St-Croix brother sexually abused desperate disabled pilgrims at the St-Croix`s Oratoire St-Joseph in exchange for miraculous medals he had promised would cure them.
There’s no criminal guilt by association per se in Canada except in certain relatively rare cases of conspiracy and organised crime. In this matter of the St-Croix in particular, severall jurists are of the opinion that the St-Croix ought to be prosecuted as an organised criminal association. Canadian tort law and Québec`s civil code do allow civil actions for vicarious liability; and this is the legal basis of this settlement. Indeed, vicarious liability is indeed the legal daughter of the Book of Genesis, and it echoes God`s will that we be the keepers of our brothers. However, although it may appear that the St-Croix now care, I believe that this settlement is (only) a routine business transaction for them (except for the disastrous public relations component to it.) But it`s summer and it shall be forgotten soon, and they know it.
Finally I`d like to add that the faithfull rarely read the fineprint on the audited financial statements of their religious organisations. And the faithfull are indeed to blame for such willfull blindness. Cash donations cannot be accounted for according to general accounting practice; and no accounting firm can certify the accuracy of financial statements of organisations which receive cash donations. That is why it is suspected by many professionals that there is considerable activity within the RCC which is off-the-books. Many have wondered here on this blog why sexual abuse intersects with financial abuse in the RCC. The answer is: because drugs and rock and roll were not a viable option, of course. If there was going to be abuse, it was going to involve sexuality. And the abuse of sexuality has always and will continue to involve money. But even if you compensate a person for having used them sexually 30 years after you did it, you are still a john. And even if you compensate a person for having
allowed a john to do it, you are also a john. And even if you compensate a person because johns used them or let them be used, you are a john because you shouldn`t even be involved in such a transaction. It`s a zero sum game: either the faithfull stay or the unfaithfull must be defrocked, for the good of the RCC.
I sincerely believe that the St-Croix constitute a organised criminal association and that the Holy See must dismantle it altogether.
bc
Radio-Canada is reporting tonight that after settling for landmark case last year that the Congregation of Holy Cross intends to defend a second class action for torts which occured in other of it’s institutions including the Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount-Royal.
See here:
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2014/11/02/002-deuxieme-recours-collectif-contre-freres-sainte-croix-agression-sexuelle-debut-mardi.shtml
Anglo media in Montreal will probably report about it during the next couple of days.
After five years of criminal procedures Holy Cross Brother Olivain Leblanc was sentenced to house arrest today; part of a 15 month sentence to be served in the community. He`ll be on the sex offender registry for 20 years. The convict Brother Leblanc confessed his crimes against a 13 year old student during the 1970`s at the Holy Cross Brothers Collège Notre-Dame in Montreal.
source:
http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/11/14/prison-a-domicile-pour-un-ex-frere-abuseur
Nice that he gets 15 months. The young man no doubt a life sentence…
The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that it will hear the leave to appeal in the matter of L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal, et al. c. J. J., et al.
(Québec) (Civile) (Autorisation) which is the second class action of victims of clerical abuse covering victims who had not attended the targetted institutions in the first class action against the Holy Cross Order.
source: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/news/en/item/5781/index.do
media:
https://quebec.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/03/29/congregation-sainte-croix-cour-supreme-canada_a_23398642/