Goutier: Father Maurice Goutier omi

 Oblate priest (Oblates of Mary Immaculate – omi).  Ordained 1956.  1995 GUILTY plea to charge of indecent assault at an Alberta residential school.  A second indecent assault charge was dismissed by the Crown.  August 1995- received a suspended sentence and two years probation .

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Unless otherwise indicated the following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories of the dates indicated

2002, 1999, 1998:  not listed

1997, 1996:  2 Maple Dr., St. Albert, Alberta (403-460-2959)

August 1995:  GUILTY plea.  Suspended sentence and two-year-probation

1995:  address for Sainte Famille RC Church, Calgary, Alberta (Pastor Father Jacques Joly omi)  (phone number for Father Goutier: (403-228-2253)

1984: with the encouragement of the Bishop of Calgary, Alberta, Maurice Goutier created Come to Me… I am the Way in 1984, which is a contemporary version of Lacombe’s ladder http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/News/spotlight/01-2009.shtml

1973-74, 1971-72:  Pastor, Our Lady of Peace, “Sacree Indian Res” 

1968-69:  Pastor, Blackfoot Reserve, Holy Trinity Church, Cluny, Alberta with missions at S. Gerard in Gleichen South, St. John in Cluny South ansd St. George in Sarcee Reserve.

1967:  Pastor, “réserve, résidence de la Ste. Trinité, Crowfoot Indian School, Cluny, Alberta

1959:  Ste. Marie residence, Cardston, Alberta

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Lawsuits may seek compensation for former residential school students

Lethbridge Herald

18 December 1995

Joanne Helmer

 A Lethbridge-based organization is going to bat for residential school victims and their communities.

The Four Worlds International Institute is spearheading a massive plan to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for Aboriginal and Metis people.

Many former residential students say abuses ranging from sexual assualts to starvation and beatings took place in the government funded, church-operated schools.

“These schools stole the most precious part of tribal peoples’ lives,” says Four Worlds co-ordinator Phil Lane. “Sooner or later, the people responsible must be held accountable for their actions.”

 Four Worlds and other aboriginal organizations are preparing for several class action lawsuits and perhaps thousands of individual civil actions in Canada and the U.S. Australia and New Zealand may also be included.

“Resolution of this issue is no different than fighting for return of the gold stolen from the Jewish people by the Nazis and forgotten is Swiss banks,” says Lane.

The group will also insist on a political process comparable to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to reveal the full scope of damages to the social, cultural and political structure of aboriginal communities.

 “It’s not enough to say we’re sorry,” says Lane.  Both the individuals and the communities experienced the consequences, so both must be included in the redress, he notes.

 Individual settlements between Ottawa and former students, about 124 so far, don’t provide the “healing process” needed by the community, or the public’s need for full disclosure.

No amount of money can ever pay for the suffering caused by suicides, rapes, incest, murders, child sexual assaults “or other the cruelty experienced in the boarding school’s,” adds Lane, who’s received international recognition for his work with indigenous cultures.

But justice won’t be done until funds are provided to restore the individuals and community\ies to what he calls, “a healthy state: culturally, socially, economically, politically, and spiritually.

 Imagine what it would be like if every child between the ages of five and seventeen was taken in one day from their parents and the City of Lethbridge was left childless for years and years, suggests Lane.

When this happened in aboriginal communities this century, some people never saw their children again.  Others lost their parenting skills and others abused their own children and communities.

 Entire generations of aboriginal people have been locked into patterns of dependency and suicide as a direct result of domination by such a sick and criminal system. Right now, there’s no real understanding of how desperate the situation is.

 Lawyer Karim Ramji, of the firm Slater Vecchio in Vancouver, describes the residential school system as “Canada’s Holocaust.”

 In a legal opinion prepared this fall for committee of the Council of B.C. Chiefs, Ramji says, “The impacts of this experience are truly multi-generational. People’s lives and the lives of their families and their children have been deeply affected by the experiences… in some circum-stances the survivors have become abusers.”

He says the impact is like a plague, ravaging and destroying aboriginal communities.
He also points out that in spite of recent evidence provided by Canada’s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the issue still remains on the public’s backburner.

A commission in Australia detailed similar widespread abuse in residential schools there.
Ramji estimates, civil damages could amount to  a $225,000 for each individual.  In Southern Alberta that could a add up to several hundred million dollars in damages.

“When the full extent of the intergeneration sexual, emotional1 physical, and spiritual abuse is disclosed at the St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s Residential Schools on the Blood Reserve, the potential damages could easily be more than several hundred million dollars,” says Lane.

 He says he’s heard stories about the schools here since he first arrived 17 years ago. He’s working with a group of Bloods on their individual lawsuits.

 Lane says there were 80 residential schools across Canada, with 125, 000 children as students.  Out of the toatl, 44 schools were operated by the Roman Catholic Church, 21 by the Anglican Church of Canada, 13 by the United Church, and two by the Presbyterian Church.

So far, 420 individual suits have been filed agilnst the federal government by former students, independent of the Four Worlds strategy.

 In all, 16 crirninal charges have been filed and some church officials, convicted, he says. Among them are, a former priest from St Mary’s Residential Salibolon the Blood Reserve. Father Maurice Goutier received a suspended sentence and two years probation in August of 1995 after pleading guilty to committing indecent assault at the school between from 1955 to 1957.  A second charge of indecent assault was dismissed by the Crown.

Tomorrow, the response from government and churches.

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Priest charged with assault

Calgary Herald

18 March 1995

Herald staff

A Roman Catholic priest who spent much of his career working with natives in southern Alberta has been charged with indecent assault.

Rev. Maurice Goutier, 66, a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is charged with two counts of indecent assault stemming from incidents that occurred close to 40 years ago on the Blood Indian Reserve, near Cardston.

He’s scheduled to appear in Cardston provincial court April 24.

A complaint against the accused was made to Cardston RCMP last July.

The incidents occurred between 1955 and 1960. Cardston is 227 kilometres south of Calgary.

Goutier was pastor of Our Lady of Peace Church on the Tsuu T’ina Reserve before moving to Edmonton, where he now lives.