Achi news desk-
A residential school survivor lawyer who is leading a proposed class action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the final step is the court case.
Maxime Faille, Sphenia Jones’ lawyer, says the goal is understanding — not money.
“Sphenia is 80 years old. She doesn’t care about money for herself,” Faille said in an interview from Vancouver.
“She wants to see healing happen, and this is an opportunity to heal and reconcile.
“But it takes two willing partners to do that. To me, (the lawsuit) is the fall back if the other side isn’t willing to come to the table. “
Jones is a Haida elder who spent time at the Edmonton Indian Residential School.
He filed a statement of claim last year claiming that the Rev. Marcin Mironiuk made defamatory comments during a 2021 sermon at Our Lady Queen of Poland Parish in Edmonton by describing evidence of unmarked graves as “lies” and “manipulation.”
The lawsuit contends the comments target residential school survivors who have spoken publicly about residential school-related deaths, including the discovery of graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
“This is the very group to which the defamatory statements were directed, labeling them as liars and manipulators in an attempt to discredit them,” the lawsuit said.
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“The defamatory statements referred to all members of the group, and it would be understandable to refer to all members of the group,” he said.
The allegations have not been proven in court.
The lawsuit names Mironiuk, the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton and the Oblate Province of Assumption Province as defendants.
The Archdiocese of Edmonton declined to comment, stating that the matter is before the courts.
The Oblate Fathers, in a statement last week, said they were fighting the lawsuit. They said Mironiuk did not intend to cause harm or disregard the “harmful reality” of those attending residential schools.
“Father Mironiuk personally pledged further to promote truth and reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians and had further educated himself on the matter,” read the statement.
Mironiuk, who is now in Ontario, is listed as an associate minister at St. Eugene De Mazenod in Brampton. The mission did not respond to a request to confirm he was still there.
Faille said his client had been very vocal about her experience at the boarding school, including witnessing the death and burials of classmates.
He said that denial of boarding schools appeared to be on the rise and the priest’s comments were hurtful.
“Those comments, they weren’t directed at anyone in particular, but they were directed at those people who are telling the truth about what happened,” he said.
“It’s not a good feeling to be branded a liar in the public realm.”
Faille said the idea of a group defamation lawsuit is unusual and challenging, but there is law backing it.
The lawsuit won a Calgary court earlier this week when a judge ruled it could move forward. Lawyers representing the Archdiocese and the religious order had asked for it to be taken down.
Law Professor Tony Paisana said the operation of the class was simple.
“It’s unusual in the sense that these people don’t know each other and have never interacted with each other. But that’s more a function of what a tort is than anything else,” said Paisana, an adjunct law professor at the University of British Columbia.
Paisana said that in defamation cases, an individual can be sued for saying something even though he does not know the people who were allegedly affected.
“It’s not like it’s a class action for beating or sexual assault. It’s something you can do in the context that you don’t know each other,” he said.
Faille said the next step is to certify the class action at a hearing, which could take up to a year.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
