Church reacts to native boycott; sense of betrayal felt on all sides since signing.

The Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples' (ACIP) rejection of the native residential schools agreement and its rebuke of the primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, is stirring up both support and criticism in the Canadian church.

Support, from natives and social-justice advocates, focuses on the contentious fact that natives who enter into the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process must sign a release form promising never to sue the government claiming loss of language and culture in the national boarding school system. Another source of dismay concerns the fact that the Anglican Church of Canada agreed to fight, alongside the government, any language and culture claims that might proceed through the courts.

But the 20-member native council is also being criticized, by both natives and non-natives, for acting in what is seen as a high-handed and obstructionist manner and criticizing the one man, Archbishop Peers, who has led the journey toward healing between the church and indigenous Anglicans.

On March 11, after Archbishop Peers and federal Public Works Minister Ralph Goodale formally signed the accord that limits Anglican residential school liability to $25 million, ACIP released a statement saying it was boycotting the agreement. The statement said that asking natives to waive future claims for loss of language and culture amounts to "an extinguishment of our aboriginal rights to our languages, cultures and traditions."

The Anglican church ran 26 of 80 native boarding schools. Hundreds of natives are suing church and government, alleging sexual and physical abuse in the schools. Many also say they were punished for speaking their native languages and were made to feel ashamed of their culture.

The ACIP statement also said it feared the ADR process "will further violate survivors while offering most of them very little compensation in return." Although the agreement was announced last November, the council said it felt there had been a "lack of meaningful consultation with ACIP" and a "rushed time frame of discussions within the dioceses." It also said that it asked the primate to delay signing the agreement, which was approved by all 30 dioceses. "We are deeply saddened by the fact that these concerns have not been deemed sufficient to warrant a delay in the signing of the agreement," the ACIP statement said.

Criticism of the ACIP position came quickly from the diocese of Keewatin, where the diocesan council includes three aboriginal archdeacons, including Archdeacon Larry Beardy, a member of the team that negotiated the agreement.

Bishop David Ashdown of Keewatin conveyed the feelings of the diocesan council in a March 17 letter to the co-chairs of ACIP. It read, in part, that the council was "deeply distressed ... to see the press release from ACIP condemning the signing ... especially the final sentence." (The ACIP statement ended by saying that when the settlement agreement is signed by the primate, "he will not be doing so in our name.")

The letter also said ACIP's "eleventh-hour" press release "blind-sided not only the primate and the negotiating team but also those of us who in good faith have been promoting this agreement as a major step on our healing journey."

At least one bishop, Don Harvey of the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, said the ACIP position is affecting his attempts to generate contributions to the $25 million settlement fund. Some people are asking why Anglicans are being asked to support the agreement if natives are against it, he said.

Others, said Bishop Harvey, are outraged at the implication that the primate, who apologized 10 years ago for the church's involvement in the residential school system and has attended every national gathering of indigenous Anglicans since then, "would be willing to sign his name to a document deliberately detrimental to them."

Since Anglicans in Newfoundland voted to contribute to the fund because they felt they were helping to promote healing and reconciliation with natives, the ACIP position "has been interpreted as a lack of gratitude," said Bishop Harvey.

However, the sense of dismay is equally felt on both sides. In a homily delivered at a regular weekly worship service at the Anglican national office in Toronto, Anglican canon Laverne Jacobs, now program officer for aboriginal ministries with the United Church of Canada, said native Anglicans feel "betrayed" by the church.

(Agreeing to stand with the government against culture claims was a concession the church made in order to achieve an agreement. Both church and government have committed funds to programs that support and restore native culture.)

Canon Jacobs also referred to the feeling that natives were not fully consulted and that diocesan ratification took place too quickly.

Todd Russell, co-chair of ACIP, noted in an interview that the 20-member council hadn't seen details of the ADR process until their early-March meeting. "It is too bureaucratic and somewhat dehumanizing. There's a 30-page application just to get into ADR," he said in an interview. Why, he asked, can't the ADR process incorporate aboriginal models and experiences? "We have begun to work on an alternate model for ADR" that include talking circles, he said.

Talking circles are an indigenous tradition which allow all persons present at a gathering to speak in turn.