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We teach our children to do it when they do something wrong, even by accident. We often do it ourselves, mostly for the trivial, but sometimes for more serious transgressions. Most of us believe it is simply the right thing to do. So when the Anglican Church in Canada said sorry for the sins of the past, many of their brethren applauded. But now, many wonder if the price for saying sorry was too high. Eight years ago the head of the Anglican church in Canada made a passionate public apology, for the abuse its members inflicted, often unwittingly sometimes deliberately, on native children entrusted to its care. But the apology, however heartfelt, seems to have fallen on stony ground. The Church is facing a financial crisis as claims for compensation flood in - seven thousand at last count. And the pay out could run into billions. The Anglican synod says it's on the point of bankruptcy, one diocese has already closed its doors and more are expected to follow. But are those who criticise the apologists themselves morally bankrupt? David Hardaker reports.

Canadian hinterland

Singing/drums

00:00

Hardaker: High in a place touched by heaven, evil is being cast out.

Aleck

Aleck: I'd really like to shed this monster off my back, off my heart, off my spirit.

00:20

Hardaker: Terry Aleck was sexually abused. In this corner of Canada, his and other claims for compensation are sending the Anglican Church broke.

00:31

Cruickshank

Cruickshank: That's the cost of when people sexually abuse people. It destroys lives, and now the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation, we're now paying the cost of something that happened a long time ago.

00:43

Town of Lytton

Music

00:57

Hardaker: This is the town of Lytton, British Columbia. It's a postage stamp of a place, population 2,000. 1,600 of them are native Indians living mainly on reserves around the town.

01:06

Small it might be, but little Lytton is exacting a major, major price for events which occurred 30 and more years ago.

Ruby

Ruby: There hasn't been one household, one family that has been spared. Every single person has been affected by residential school.

01:30

Ruby: This is a gathering place for our people.

Hardaker: Ruby Dunstan has heard all the stories. She's a former chief of Lytton's Indian community. She, like most here, was taken from her family to the now notorious St. George's Residential School.

01:50

Still photos: St. George's Residential School

Music

01:59

Hardaker: St. George's was one of 130 schools run by the Anglican and other churches around the country. Native Indian kids were forced to board at the school. Even though home might be just around the corner.

Assimilation was the government policy of the time -- the church, a willing agent.

Ruby

Ruby: I got rebellious, you know. Because I'd be just sitting in church for two and a half hours, bored stiff because whose God. You know, I knew him as the Creator, that's how I was brought up. And when they talk about God, I had no idea who they were talking about.

02:26

Site St. George's Residential School

Hardaker: The St. George's Residential School at Lytton is gone, burnt down years ago. All that remains is a boarded up chapel, and, for the native Indians, memories of a catastrophic clash of cultures.

02:49

Hardaker in chapel

Hardaker: Here in the vestry it's bit of a mess. Prayer books abandoned and in the back room here, a pretty clear sign of what some locals think of the Anglican Church. And who could blame them, because right next door to this chapel some unspeakable acts took place. The dormitory supervisor, Derek Clarke, was meant to be looking after the welfare of the kids under his charge. But instead he was sexually abusing them.

03:05

Aleck

Aleck: He would say don't tell, don't tell anybody. This is just between us. And then he would give me some fudge candy or any other candies that he would have in the room with him. He's have the TV on, loud enough where, you know, nobody could hear what was going on.

03:30

Hardaker: Did you feel confused by that?

Aleck: Lost. Hurt, because it hurt while he was abusing me. And scared. Scared. I was -- every time I was in that room I'd cry into that pillow there and he just…

03:50

Healing gathering at Lytton

Hardaker: Terry Aleck was nine when the abuse started. It lasted til he was 14. At this healing gathering of Lytton's native Indians, Terry Aleck is the custodian of a sacred tradition, using scented smoke to cleanse the body and the soul. A lot of it is keeping up appearances, because Terry Aleck well remembers how Derek Clarke abused him. And the day it all came out in a counselling session, with a stick and a punching bag.

04:08

Aleck

Aleck: I had so much rage, so much anger, so much pain. A lot of hurt. And then I realised, you know, that it hurt me that bad, that much, and that sexual abuse controlled my whole life. In my relationships that I had, and I just beat that bag til until I couldn't walk.

04:38

Lytton chapel

Music

05:21

Hardaker: The man who abused Terry Aleck had sullied the souls of innocence, and in 1993 dormitory supervisor, Derek Clarke, was convicted of serial sex offences. Two years ago, one of Terry Aleck's best mates, Floyd Mowatt, applied for compensation. The judge found that though Derek Clarke was paid by the government, which funded the school, he answered to the church which administered the school. The judgment found that the church was guilty of a cover up.

Cruikshank

Super:

Bishop Cruikshank

Diocese of Cariboo

Cruikshank: We were found 60 percent liable, the government 40 percent liable. And we then knew with the huge number of cases across the Canadian church, that we would not be able to survive as a national church and some dioceses would not be able to survive, simply because of the facts. The facts are, abuse took place. The fact, we are 60 percent liable. Fact -- the damages are more than our assets. And so that means you can't exist and you have to start again. So the diocese is kind of like a circle through different mountain valleys.

05:54

Hardaker: Later this year history will be made. The bishop's vast diocese, the Diocese of Cariboo, will pay the ultimate price for the past. It will cease to exist.

06:25

Cariboo chapel

Cariboo and the other Anglican diocese, operate as separate legal entities. So the debts of one aren't covered by the others.

The Mowatt case cost Cariboo a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees alone. And there are at least another eight cases to come.

06:44

Cruikshank

Cruikshank: We're financially exhausted, and we're exhausted in all kinds of other ways. We're beyond grieving. We're beyond grieving losing our assets.

06:52

Music

St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral

Hardaker: Sunday morning -- St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Kamploops, Diocese of Cariboo.

07:04

Music

Hardaker: Here, the cost of paying for the past threatens the sacred traditions of others. This church, like the rest in the diocese, is slated to go in any fire sale. But the church's words of regret and its cries of poverty are scorned in Lytton.

07:14

Ruby

Ruby: I don't believe that the Anglican Church is going broke. Our people say when they hear that the church is going broke, they say, well why don't they melt all the candlesticks. Those golden candlestick holders or whatever you call them, and all the collection plates. Why don't they melt that?

07:33

Music

St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral

Hardaker: Ruby Dunstan might be right. The Anglicans have legal advice which says they can't sell their churches, because they are held in sacred trust. It will take a court case to sort out who really owns them.

07:59

Hardaker: But can you see why the Ruby Dunstans of the world would be pretty cynical?

08:13

Cruikshank: Absolutely. And I totally understand that, because people believe that we were hiding our assets.

Cruikshank

There's part of me would just like to say, take it all, but I can't -- I mean you can't give away things that don't belong to you. And the legal advice we have is that we hold it in trust. And people, when people give money to a charitable organisation for a particular cause, it has to be used for the cause for which it is given.

08:25

Hardaker: But there's more trouble ahead. More compensation claims are emerging, snaking their way across the country. Two more diocese are headed the way of Cariboo, over separate sex abuse claims.

08:42

Class action lawyers have lodged claims for physical abuse, emotional abuse, and for so called cultural abuse. There are 700 so far, all ending up at the door step of Canada's Anglican primate, Archbishop Michael Peers.

08:55

Archbishop Michael Peers

Hardaker: The archbishop prepares for the Anglican General Synod, knowing it may be the last. The church's national governing body too has been bitten by compensation claims. And says it will bankrupt inside 12 months.

09:13

Super:

Archbishop Michael Peers

Anglican Primate of Canada

Peers: Because I take the very long view of things, I live at a certain moment in the life of the world, and the church, and my moment will pass. And what I want is that it will be seen to have been a moment that contributed to healing, both in the church, but also in Canada as a country.

09:28

Singing

09:57

Hardaker: Adored inside this arena, there are some outside who see the primate not as a visionary, but blind to reality.

10:03

Singing

Hardaker: Eight years ago, as details of the abuse at residential schools emerged, he offered native Indians an unreserved and unprecedented apology.

10:14

Peers: I am sorry more than I can say that in our schools so many were abused -- physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally.

10:25

Hardaker: For ten minutes, the primate detailed what he called the shame and humiliation of the church.

10:54

Peers: And from the Anglican Church of Canada, I offer my apology.

11:00

Hardaker: Presumably there are some who think that you're the captain taking the ship to the bottom of the harbour.

11:09

Peers: I think there are some who feel that way, and I think a lot of that arises from some ideas about the perils of apologising, which have turned out, in fact, not to be the case. At least not legally the case.

11:15

Ian Hunter

Hardaker: One Anglican who certainly does feel that is Ian Hunter.

11:36

Hunter: I mean I often say that seldom do a group of bishops meet together without an apology issuing forth over this.

Hardaker: Mr. Hunter is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Western Ontario. He's an Anglican, and his church is part of a diocese with is the subject of a $2.4 billion class action.

11:47

Hardaker: Is it your view that this apology has made the church's position in court untenable?

11:59

Hunter: Yes, completely untenable. I've often said that, I mean if I were counsel for the plaintiffs in any of these law suits, I wouldn't bother calling any of the alleged victims, I'd simply call the primate, Michael Peers, and ask him did you make such and such a statement on September 1993, comparing it to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Yes, I did. Have you since said that this is the worst tragedy, cultural genocide? Yes, I did? What other witnesses do you need?

12:03

Peers

Hardaker: Was there no fear that the words of that apology might then be turned back against you? That it might form the basis of an irresistible tide of compensation?

12:30

Peers: At the time the decision was made to apologise -- that the council made the decision to apologise -- this was, this certainly was a consideration. What we felt then was that we didn't know what the implications of that were. What we've learned since is, that in legal terms there is no implication in terms of compensation. We didn't know that at the time, but when you know it's the right thing to do, you take that path.

12:41

Canadian hinterland

Music

Hardaker: The legal power of the Anglican Church's extraordinary apology has been tested only once. That was in the case of Floyd Mowatt, who was sexually abused at St. George's Residential School in Lytton.

13:32

In that case, the judge made no mention of the apology in deciding against the church. The national debate was settled three years ago when the federal government issued its own less detailed apology.

13:46

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, Herb Gray

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, Herb Gray is responsible for the government's response to the residential schools issue.

14:02

Super:

Herb Gray

Deputy Prime Minister, Canada

Hardaker: Isn't it true that if you apologise, as you've done, it's an admission of guilt. You're saying…

14:12

Gray: No, I don't say that. I don't agree with that. We feel that this was the morally right thing to do. We don't see it being linked with any findings of the courts with respect to liability.

Hardaker: So, the evidence is, that a generalised apology does not prove and individual case. But there's now a flood of claims, and Herb Gray must try to break the legal logjam between the government, the church and complainants.

14:29

Gray: There are over 4,000 individual cases. They are growing at the rate of 140 a month. If we don't take some action to resolve the matter, it could take twenty, twenty-four years to have them work their way through the courts.

14:45

Anglican Church Toronto headquarters

Hardaker: For the Anglican Church, the court cases raise the risk of financial apocalypse. Some of the church's social programs have already been cut.

15:01

The synod's Toronto headquarters is set to be sold soon, and they're demanding that the federal government come up with an overall settlement package to take that course out of the occasion.

Peers

Peers: It's not compensation that we're opposed to. Compensation is where we would like to be. Litigation is where we are, at 98 percent of our costs.

15:22

Archival footage: Children in school

Music

15:32

Hardaker: In most cases before the courts it's the federal government being sued. But the government has taken out cross claims against the church which ran the schools. As a result, there's an almighty battle between church and state.

Peers

Peers: There is also another face of government which is the Department of Justice, whose mandate is to protect the government against all comers, and that means Aboriginal people, it means churches, it means anybody. And to pursue and aggressive policy which says we're not sitting there waiting for you to come to us, we're coming to you. And we're taking you on.

15:51

Gray

Gray: Well, the issue is what's fair to all concerned, including the claimants who feel that there is a responsibility of church organisations and their former employees, and the view of Canadians who may feel that if there's a shared responsibility, that should be recognised in any overall settlement. And that's what we're discussing.

16:15

Peers

Hardaker: Herb Gray says, look we have to take a long time to get this right. We have to talk to the native people, all the churches, so give us time. Do you buy that argument?

16:42

Peers: Well, that's the opinion of an institution which has two things in its favour -- a lot of money and a lot of time. I work in an institution which doesn't have a lot of money and certainly doesn't have a lot of time.

16:52

Inside chapel

Cruikshank: As a friend, as a leader, as a brother, so I extend my hand.

Hardaker: In the Anglican Church's version of reality, there will one day be full reconciliation with native Indians hurt by the residential schools.

17:25

Some have stayed with the church, and forgiven it. Others though, never will, despite the hugs and despite the biggest apology in the world.

Ruby

Ruby: How can I forgive, when I can't forget what they did. Maybe on my death bed I'll forgive, I don't know. I don't know that. But knowing the kind of person I am, I'll probably get to heaven and kick ass up there.

17:44

Peers in ceremony

Singing/Music/Clapping

Hardaker: For the primate there is some joy amid the pain. Having shown the moral courage to admit the truth, the church's immediate future is being dictated by the courts and politicians.

18:13

Singing

Hardaker: But the Anglican primate is confident his institution will emerge the stronger for it.

18:37

Peers

Peers: We really are in for the long haul, and on the haul a century from now this will have been a difficult time, discreditable to the church in a number of ways. But not in every way. It has forced us to rise to some potential that we might not have thought existed within us, around issues of apology and forgiveness, healing and reconciliation.

18:46

So that our long future will be the best it can be given our chequered past, and our perilous future.

19:21

Singing

19:34

Credits:

Canada Church

Reporter: David Hardaker

Camera: Gregory Heap

Sound: Kate Graham

Editor: Stuart Miller

19:41

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And now to our postcard, coming to us from the city best known before September 11 as an epicentre of excess -- New York! And what could be more excessive, some might say obsessive, than the way therapy-crazy New Yorkers treat their four legged friends? Woody Allen eat your heart out -- here’s Craig McMurtrie with the mad dogs of Manhattan.