'Far from bankrupt': Catholic order that ran 48 residential schools faces criticism

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

From the rugged coast of James Bay to the gilded halls of the Vatican, Evelyn Korkmaz says she has learned a great deal about the Catholic Church and its entities.

"Their valuables are more important than humanity," said Korkmaz, a survivor of St. Anne's Indian Residential School, the notorious institution in northern Ontario she was forced to attend and where she was abused as a child. 

For years, Korkmaz has sought records and reparations she says the church owes her and other survivors. It's a campaign that took her to Rome in 2019 for a Vatican summit on sexual abuse.

"They've claimed to be poor, bankrupt. I went to the Vatican — they are far from bankrupt," said Korkmaz, who has received some compensation but is still involved in litigation against the groups that operated residential schools.

Those who have sued the church for past wrongdoing say seeking justice is a herculean task, made all the more difficult by the complex corporate structure that they say is designed to protect Catholic entities.

A CBC investigation into one important entity — the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), which ran 48 residential schools across Canada — reveals an elaborate network of more than two dozen corporate holdings with at least $200 million in assets and cash, with a priority to take care of a dwindling number of aging priests in the face of looming liabilities.

In fact, an internal church bulletin from 2007 cited the containment of liabilities as one of the main reasons for an order's corporate restructuring.

The Oblates are among the dozens of Catholic entities that together promised $25 million for a fund approved in 2006 to compensate survivors for the emotional, physical and sexual abuse, as well as systemic violations of basic human rights, suffered in residential schools run by Catholic priests and nuns.

But the Catholic groups said they were only able to raise $3.9 million through the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), and in 2015, the federal government released the Catholic Church from its settlement obligations.

A year before that controversial deal, the Oblates sold a large acreage along the Rideau River in Ottawa, earning a handsome profit that critics say is further evidence of the church's priorities.

"They sold property in Ottawa to the tune of $32 million. We know that they spent over $110 million on the refurbishment of St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto. We know that in Saskatoon, they built a $29-million-plus cathedral. At the same time as they're claiming poverty and unable to pay the reparations. I say that that's unfair," said Donald Worme, a Saskatoon lawyer and former lead counsel for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Worme now represents clients seeking information regarding unmarked graves at former residential schools. The three recent rediscoveries in Kamloops, B.C., Marieval, Sask., and near Brandon, Man., are all on properties once run by the Oblates. 

"When you sign an agreement and say that you are going to give money to people, it's a contract," said Korkmaz. "What right does Canada have to allow the church off the hook?"