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By KIRK MAKIN
Globe and Mail
Friday, February 22, 2002 Print Edition, Page A5
JUSTICE REPORTER -- The Supreme Court of Canada struck a strong blow for free speech yesterday, ruling that consumers enjoy a vital constitutional right to publicly criticize companies, products and services.
"This type of communication may be of considerable social importance -- even beyond the merely commercial sphere," Mr. Justice Louis LeBel wrote for a 9-0 majority.
The court ruled that Canadians have a right to express their dissatisfaction via conventional media, the Internet and on signs.
"It is a form of expression of opinion that has an important effect on the social and economic life of a society," Judge LeBel wrote. "It is a right not only of consumers but of citizens."
The appellant, Roger Guignard, is a Quebecker who fought city hall after being convicted of illegally posting a sign in a residential area. The sign violated a City of Saint-Hyacinthe bylaw.
Mr. Guignard's sign -- posted on a building he owned -- denounced his insurance company for not having paid a claim filed several months earlier.
He supplied the dates of the claim on the sign and wrote: "Commerce Group
-- The Incompetent Insurance Company Has Still Not Indemnified Me."
Yesterday's ruling could lead to competing companies portraying one another negatively by name. It is bound to give heart to advocates of unrestricted communications on the Internet.
"There are a lot of Internet sites where people discuss stocks, investments and corporate management," said David Stratas, a Toronto lawyer. "To my knowledge, this is the first time the court has talked about the Internet as being a vehicle of free speech.
"It seems to say that type of speech is extraordinarily important and has a tremendous value to society," Mr. Stratas said. "It is a very robust ruling."
The ruling says counteradvertising is as important as advertising – and even ranks with certain forms of political expression.
"Consumers may express their frustration or disappointment with a product or service," it says. "Consumers may share their concerns, worries or even anger with other consumers and try to warn them against the practices of a business."
It notes that discontented citizens of limited means cannot hope to purchase media advertising to make their point, which leaves signs or leaflets as their only alternatives. To deny them a cheap alternative would create two tiers of free expression, the ruling says.
Judge LeBel stresses that defamation laws still apply to any communication that goes beyond being merely critical or disturbing and unjustifiably harms a reputation.
Lawyers for the municipality claimed in legal arguments that the bylaw did nothing more than reduce visual pollution and distractions to drivers.
Judge LeBel wrote that while the municipality's goal of reducing visual pollution was justifiable, the bylaw was a vague and ham-handed attempt to achieve it.
"All other types of signs of a more generic nature -- although they are just as polluting from a visual point of view -- are exempt from the bylaw," he notes.
The ruling includes a strong affirmation of some previous, controversial decisions under the Charter of Rights that granted free expression to commercial interests.
"Freedom of expression is fundamental to the life of every individual and plays a critical role in the development of our society," the court says.
Two thumbs up for Mr. Ken Campbell, an ordained Fellowship Baptist Minister vowing to fight the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal every step of the way over an alleged antigay newspaper ad he placed in the April 18th 1998 issue of the Globe and Mail.
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal estimates that a 10 day hearing will be needed to deal with a complaint by Kevin Stacey, which states that Reverend Campbell discriminated against homosexuals by referring to them in the ad as "barbarians"
The ad was an offensive attack on homosexuals the compliant said.
"I will not voluntarily participate further in this shameless charade" writes the Reverend.
See staff reporter Mr. Ian Austin's column "Hearing over antigay ad a charade" the Province Newspaper Feb 7th 2001 page A11
Did you know that any complainant filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commissions and brought to a tribunal / inquisition incurs no costs ?
You do!
Did you know that the defendant suffers all costs without recourse regardless of decision?
Did you know that the "Human Rights Commissions" supercede your Charter of Rights?
Congratulations to British Columbia's human rights police who managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory by awarding Raymond Jones $ 30,000 in compensation for hurt feelings and wages he lost after walking off the job a short time before Christmas 1998 because as a Jehovah's Witness he told the tribunal / inquisition that decorating a store with plastic poinsettias went against his religious beliefs.
see "Rights tribunal wastes money on pointless poinsettia case Thursday Jan 25th 2001 the Province page A30
Quotes from the Vancouver Sun
Thursday October 26th 2000 Page A5 Jim Beattys' article
MUNICIPAL LEADERS SUPPORT A MOTION TO ALLOW AN EXEMPTION FROM THE HUMAN RIGHTS CODE.
Meeting in Victoria this week, the Union of B.C. Municipalities endorses a controversial motion that would reject community causes that don't conform with their personal beliefs.
Earlier this year, Kelowna Mayor Walter Gray had his knuckles rapped by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for attempting to strike the word "pride" from a gay and lesbian pride day proclamation.
Gray said Wednesday (yesterday) that local politicians should not be forced to proclaim events they or the wider community don't support. "It's about modernizing the Human Rights Code," said
Mr. Gray. "It's an attempt to restore a mayor's right to free speech.
Fort St. John Mayor Steve Thorlakson said the issue is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. " The intent of the Human Rights Tribunal is an honourable one, but the result is quite offensive. If the Aryan Nations group decided to approach a community and insist on a proclamation, we would have no basis to refuse. And wouldn't that be offensive?".
Mr. Thorkalson said elected officials "must not have artificial bureaucratically imposed restrictions on free speech. That's deeply offensive.
Vancouver gay activist peter cook, who has three sexual discrimination cases before the Human Rights Tribunal, said municipal leaders have proven themselves to be homophobic..
The National Post reports convicted pedophile Gordon Stuckless will be freed this February 23rd 2001 after serving two thirds of his sentence.
The Post reported that Corrections Canada officials decided to grant Stuckless a statutory release even though Stuckless shows no remorse and was overheard wishing that Martin Kruze had killed himself earlier.
Gordon Stuckless a former equipment manager at Maple Leaf Gardens assaulted 23 victims Including Martin Kruze.
But for a successful appeal to lengthen the original sentence of two years less a day to five years, Gordon Stuckless would have been free a long time ago.
Question: How can do you identify a pedophile before he is caught?
Answer: You can't
63 year old George Herman Kerster a former caucus member of the provincial Social Credit government was convicted on February 08 2001in B.C. Supreme Court of attempting to obtain sex from an 11 year old girl.
Kerster will be the first man in Canada to be convicted of trying to buy sex from a minor by using the internet.
Sentencing will happen May 07th 2001. The maximum sentence is five years in jail. Prosecutor Kerr Clark said he will ask for a custodial jail sentence.
- Rights watchdog faces crisis
- A Warning for the Human Rights Commissions
- Completely Unarmed
- Media Charged With Hiding Truth About
Homosexual Lifestyle
- regional sex offender registry
- Homosexuals more likely to molest kids, study reports
- Heterosexuals Guestbook
Karl Toft molested more than 200 boys in New Brunswick yet the "mainstream" media insists on labeling him a child molester as opposed to calling him what he is. Why?
Karl Toft is a homosexual pedophile.
From the National Post, Saturday, April 28,2001
WEEK IN REVIEW
Men II Boyz. A Spanish hockey club hires Graham James, who sexually abused teenage Canadian hockey players. The club's coordinator dismisses the fuss over the disgraced coach, saying: "I've taken showers with 14 and 15 year-old boys and maybe we had a soccer game with a bar of soap."
The coordinator's name is Francisco Bravo, or as James calls him:
"The competition".
WHITE PLAINS. N.Y. – a roman catholic priest who is the spiritual adviser at a Connecticut high school was arrested after allegedly having explicit sexual conversations online with an undercover agent posing as a 14 year old boy.
Rev. John J Castaldo is charged with attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor.
Thursday, December 20, 2001
Pedophile jailed indefinitely
By KEVIN MARTIN, Calgary Sun
Incurable pedophile Darryl (Rob) Aird -- who "groomed" his victims through friendships with their parents or babysitters -- has been locked up indefinitely.
Justice Ged Hawco ruled yesterday Aird is a dangerous offender whose chances
of striking again remain high. But the Calgary judge urged Aird to take advantage of treatment programs in prison which could eventually result in his return to the community. And, Hawco also expressed his "sincere desire that our system will not treat Mr.Aird as a hopeless case."
Following the ruling, Aird's lawyer said he remains concerned his client won't be
made a priority for the treatment he needs, despite Hawco's comments."I would hope that they wouldn't just warehouse the man," said Jim Conley, who has spent more than two years fighting the Crown's bid to have Aird declared
dangerous. "Regrettably, that may be the reality," Conley said.
In granting Crown prosecutor Roy Smith's application, Hawco said there was no
chance in the foreseeable future that treatment could minimize Aird's risk of
reoffending. "I am satisfied that there is (currently) no chance of controlling the threat of his dangerousness within tolerable limits," he said. "He has, indeed, demonstrated to me ... there is not a realistic prospect of management of the risk of his reoffending in the community."
Aird, 40, was convicted in November 1999, of two sex-related charges involving afive-year-old Calgary boy. He also has five previous sex-related convictions
involving young males dating back to 1983. In many of the cases, including the most recent, Aird gained access to the children by befriending their parents.
"He has groomed not only his victims, but their mothers, or babysitters," said
Hawco.The judge noted one psychologist, Dr. Mark Nesca, suggested Aird's target victims -- young boys -- made him an even greater risk than other sex offenders. "Dr. Nesca was of the opinion that Mr. Aird's conduct is and always has been predatory," said Hawco. "The fact that he preys on young males makes him a higher risk to reoffend."
Hawco gave Aird an indeterminate sentence which could see him locked up for
the rest of his life. His detention will be reviewed periodically by parole official beginning seven years after the date of his arrest in February 1999.
BY DEFINITION
Darryl (Rob) Aird
IS A HOMOSEXUAL PEDOPHILE
Former principal named dangerous offender
Friday, December 21, 2001 – Page A10 Globe and Mail Newspaper
Vancouver -- The National Parole Board yesterday denied full parole to a former British Columbia elementary school principal who admitted molesting at least 65
children.
Robert Noyes was labeled a dangerous offender and given an indefinite
sentence in 1986 after being convicted of sex crimes against 19 children. He
will continue to be released on day parole for at least another six months.
Human rights chief sued
By Adrienne Tanner
Wednesday, November 28,2001 – Page A9 the Province Newspaper
A Burnaby man who is the subject of a human-rights complaint for spreading anti-gay hate messages is suing his accusers.
John Micka has filed a lawsuit against Michelle-Falardeau –Ramsay, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a number of commission lawyers and Mark Schnell, the Vancouver man who initiated the complaint.
Micka claims the defendants conspired to shut down what he calls his "anti-pedophile website" by manipulating Schnell to lodge a human rights complaint.
"Schnell's actions caused false stories to be published…which were intended to incite hatred against the plaintiffs (Micka and Machiavelli & Associates Emprize Inc.) the claim says.
The commission was negligent in its role of monitoring and controlling the actions or inactions unbecoming of its lawyers/employees/members."
Schnell, a34 year-old Vancouver man who is gay, filed a human rights complaint in 1999 against Micka and Machiavelli. He said a website posted by Machiavelli discriminated against him and exposed all homosexuals to hatred.
It was the second time a human rights tribunal examined alleged hate on the Internet. The first involved a website run by holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel. Decisions in both cases are outstanding.
Catherine Barrat, a spokes-woman for the commission, said the agency has referred the lawsuit to its legal counsel.
Head of human-rights agency decides to quit at end of year
By DANIEL LEBLANC
Monday, December 3, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A9 Globe and Mail
OTTAWA -- Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, the head of the beleaguered Canadian Human Rights Commission, says she is exhausted and will quit at the end of the year. Ms. Falardeau-Ramsay will complete her five-year mandate, but she has told the government that she will not seek a second term. Her departure will allow Ottawa to remodel the agency in anticipation of the coming overhaul of the Human Rights Act. "I leave Dec. 31, and I'm very happy," Ms. Falardeau-Ramsay said. "I'm not happy to leave the commission or the people I work with, but I'm very tired. That's what I said to the Prime Minister's Office. You have to know when to leave, and when you're tired like that, I told myself that it was better to leave before I suffered a burnout."
Although it was her decision to depart, there is no guarantee that her contract would have been renewed; the commission was hit with sagging morale, infighting and high turnover during her tenure.
The government is expected to announce its reaction next summer to a sweeping report from retired judge Gérard LaForest on the overhaul of human rights. Among its 165 recommendations, the report suggests rules to prevent discrimination against the poor.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan said the government is in the middle of "rethinking the entire human-rights agenda. "The opportunity presents itself to have a new group of people at the top running the Human Rights Commission, who can provide us with their take on the LaForest report and their take on how we deal with the protection of human rights at this time," Ms. McLellan said.
"We have to explore . . . whether or not one needs new mechanisms to protect rights and to protect against discrimination, and we need to know whether there is a requirement to add additional protections, be it in terms of groups that may be subject to discrimination or other things."
Ms. Falardeau-Ramsay hopes that her successor will obtain more resources from the government to expand the commission's work into areas of systemic discrimination. She called on her successor to be vigilant about discrimination against Muslims and Arabs."I think it's important to have someone [as chief commissioner] with a lot of energy, especially since there are big challenges following Sept. 11. It will bequite the challenge to make sure that we maintain the balance between rights and security in Canadian society. That, I think, will be the biggest challenge facing my successor."
Ms. Falardeau-Ramsay said the high point of her five-year term was the victory against the government in the pay-equity dispute. After a long fight, Ottawa was forced by tribunals in 1999 to pay more than $3-billion to about 230,000 current and former employees.
Tuesday, January 08 Globe and Mail Newspaper
VATICAN ISSUES NEW RULES ON PEDOPHILE PRIESTS
Reuters News Agency
Vatican City — The Vatican has quietly issued new rules for Roman Catholic churches around the world to deal with pedophile priests, saying they should stand trial in secret ecclesiastical courts.
Pope John Paul II and the Vatican issued two documents on the problem in 2001, but they were not presented at press conferences or made public as is usually the case for such documents. Instead, they were published in Latin without any fanfare in the latest yearly volume of Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Acts of the Apostolic See), the journal of record of the Holy See.
In recent years, the Roman Catholic Church around the world has been rocked by scandals involving pedophile priests, and the Vatican has been grappling with how to control the damage.
In his document, known in Latin as a Motu Proprio and one of the highest forms of papal directives, the Pope authorized the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to issue guidelines on how to deal with the problem. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation, which deals with matters of faith and morals, sent a letter to all Roman Catholic bishops and heads of religious orders outlining the Vatican's concerns.
"With this letter, we hope that not only will these serious crimes be avoided, but, above all, that the holiness of the clergy and the faithful be protected by the necessary sanctions and by the pastoral care offered by the bishops and others responsible," the letter said.
Cardinal Ratzinger's letter said that if a local bishop or head of a religious order became aware of "even a hint" of a case of pedophilia "he must open an investigation and inform the [Rome] Congregation."
A local Church tribunal, made up of priests, should hear the case, which could be referred to the Vatican, but the procedures would be covered by church secrecy. The Congregation, the modern successor of the Inquisition, included acts of pedophilia by priests as one of the "grave offences" against the Church.
A cover sheet was attached asking the recipients not to divulge the
information contained in the letter, Church sources said. The cover sheet was
not published in the official record.
The cardinal's letter made no mention of whether a bishop should inform civil authorities if a church court found a priest guilty.
Pedophilia scandals, particularly in developed countries, have given the church a black eye and have cost local dioceses millions of dollars in legal fees and financial settlements.
A French court handed down a three-month suspended jail term last September to a Roman Catholic bishop for failing to tell police that a priest in his diocese had admitted having sexually abused children.
In a high-profile case in 2000, a U.S. jury found the Catholic diocese of Dallas had concealed sexual abuse of boys by a priest and awarded the victims
$125-million (U.S.) in damages — the largest award up to then in a
sexual-abuse case.
IN – HOUSE INSIDER
Tales Out of School:
When Eddie Taylor Spoke Out
This could be the story of an in-house counsel who told a paper about a dysfunctional government agency he worked for. Or, it may be about an agency that suspended a critical and unhappy employee. Whatever happened, human rights lawyer Eddie Taylor spoke out and paid a high price.
By Lynne Cohen
as published in the Canadian Lawyer Magazine November/December 2001
It's hard not to feel sympathy when you hear that a fellow lawyer has been suspended from his job for criticizing his employer. It's even harder when you learn that the disciplined in-house counsel was speaking out against the Canadian Human Rights Commission, 23-year-old government agency mandated to stick up for powerless and mistreated employees under the federal jurisdiction.
But when you talk about the situation with Eddie Taylor, suspended with pay last May 15 from his job as a senior litigator at the CHRC, you learn there is much more to this story than meets the eye. There's more to it than his scathing denunciation of his employer in the Globe and Mail –comments that really just reiterated, albeit more colourfully, the revelations already outlined in a public document.
That document happened to be the 61-page CHRC-sponsored report about the agency's very unhappy employees, prepared by the giant human resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. In a nutshell, the Watson Wyatt report states that the CHRC is in a complete disarray, full to the brim with unhappy lawyers and other staff, who have apparently been quitting faster than it takes for the commission to reject a frivolous complaint.
Even at its simplest, it's a complex story about a professional civil servant who stated publicly that his employer had lost its "moral authority" to deal in human rights, and then paid a high personal price for saying that. Upon closer scrutiny, it's a story about that same employee's decade-long fight to make his workplace and its problems a government priority; his efforts to help the commission retain, or perhaps regain, some of its integrity and, in the end, about his hope and desire to squeeze a meaningful acknowledgement from the Canadian Human Rights Commission that it has treated him badly.
Like most whistle –blower tales, this one has no winners, and a federal jurisdiction---comprising all those tens of thousands of federally-regulated employees defined by the Canadian Human Rights Act as potential complainants---full of losers.
According to the Watson Wyatt report, which the CHRC made public a few days before Taylor's suspension, the staff thinks management devalues and discriminates against its own female staff. This, despite the fact that 50 percent of the commission's managers are women.
The report also notes that, of the CHRC's 230 employees, 37 percent were planning to quit the agency soon. This confirmed what lawyer and chief commissioner Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay had previously stated publicly, that in the past year her office had already experienced a 40 percent staff turnover. In the last 26 months alone 10 lawyers – eight women and two men – had left the CHRC.
The damning report is not the first if its kind. Four years ago, the federal auditor-general criticized the CHRC, which has an annual budget of about $22 million, for taking far too long to resolve complaints and failing to use minimum standards of investigation, among other problems. Last year, Taylor told Canadian Lawyer the CHRC shelved the report by the review panel headed by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Gerard La Forest. "The panel went across the country a great expense to the taxpayer" he said, adding that it called for the CHRC's complete demise.
This time, he said, the employees were not going to let that happen. Called to a special meeting by management at the National Archives to receive their copies of the Watson Wyatt report, the employees were required to show their ID cards before they each were given a numbered and recorded copy. "This was to make sure that the report was not leaked to anyone," said Taylor. "When certain people on the staff heard (the report wasn't going to be made public) they went ballistic. One woman in particular went nuts. She said: "I don't care, I will release it." There were several other employees who said that too."
Responding quickly, CHRC managers changed their minds virtually overnight, releasing the document on the CHRC website. That's where the Globe got the report from I guess," says Taylor, noting that soon after the release, a CHRC "cheerleading session was held. I didn't go because it (was) stupid. The managers brought everybody together to say "Rah, rah. This report is not that bad."
A day or so after the public release, the Globe called Taylor for comments. "I said I would comment because (CHRC) managers will try to bury this. They will try to put a spin on this to show that it is just a few grumblers." Taylor told Canadian Lawyer.
And it clearly wasn't just a few grumblers, he says. "There was an 83 percent overall response rate, overwhelmingly negative against the management. This is important. It was not 50-50, for and against. The level of satisfaction on a scale of one to five is one. So it is not just a few malcontents—it is everybody. And I told the Globe that this did reflect the feelings of the staff as I saw them."
More specifically, employee complaints, as reported by Watson Wyatt, included:
- the commission lacks leadership in human rights issues at the same time that it employs to many managers;
- the office is continually running in a crises atmosphere;
- there is a severe staff shortage to handle the high case load;
- senior managers take to many trips abroad;
- the staff fights amongst itself and people don't trust each other
- hiring's and promotions are based on favouritism rather than merit; and
- that managers are spiteful and often belittle and berate employee, even in front of others.
With precision timing, the report also indicates that managers frequently
retaliate against employees who speak out.
Eddie Taylor summarized the report for the readers of The Globe and Mail on May 12,2001:"They (senior Managers) think this place is their personal sandbox and they're going to have around them people…who are just going to agree with them." He called the situation "devastating." He said managers at the CHRC "have no moral authority. They cannot take the high ground." He said the CHRC "needs to be overhauled completely. It's an abuse and a waste of taxpayers' money"
He wasn't completely alone. Lawyer and former employee RoseMarie Morgan, who had worked at the CHRC for 10 years until the quit last December, told the newspaper in the same story that she "found it (the CHRC) unbearable."
Eddie Taylor does not like to be interviewed. He only agree to speak to Canadian Lawyer after a long song-and –dance, including ten days of thinking it over, and two hours of "off-the-record" discussions over lunch at an Ottawa restaurant. He refused to discuss even the basics of his background, say where he was born or even tell what year he was called to the Ontario bar. (The Law Society of Upper Canada confirms it was 1994)
"This story is not about me," he insisted two weeks later at a second (this time on-the-record) interview, in between sips of weak coffee in a local bagel shop. "There is a great story to be done here about whistle-blowing and lawyers, but it is not about me."
Beyond what was revealed in the report and what he told the Globe, Taylor told Canadian Lawyer the commission, which sends about 35 of 1200 complaints a year on to a tribunal hearing, does not take seriously the legal opinion of its own lawyers. The commission, according to Taylor, seemed to feel "that these legal opinions were a waste of time and a bureaucratic intrusion. So they would assign them to a third-year law students or casual employees. Some of the opinions would end up being two lines long, with no analysis."
Taylor also said one of the central issues in his case, in his opinion, "is access to information laws, which are meaningless without protection for insiders. This is because, if you don't know the information is there (in a government office), then you can never get at it. When you make an access to information request, you have to be very specific. You can't just say, "Give me everything about bacteria and milk" --- it's, 'Give me the green document kept in the sixth folder in the 14th filing cabinet."
In other words, if public servants can't safely tell the public what's kept in the office, the public won't know what to ask for.
But the CHRC, which refused to speak with Canadian Lawyer until sometime in the fall – after senior managers had completed a closer look at the Watson Wyatt report at a September retreat with employees --- would clearly disagree. Even chief commissioner Falardeau-Ramsay who was forced to interrupt her May business trip to Indonesia and East Timor to rush back to Canada to face the crisis – would not comment on Taylor's suspension.
The only commission comment on the suspension came within a few days in the form of a brief statement that said the lawyer had been escorted out of his office, due to "alleged conduct by Mr. Taylor of a very serious nature." In a letter to Taylor the commission informed him: "The investigation will also cover matters relating to your press interview which appeared in The Globe and Mail on Saturday, May 12, 2001."
Since then, Taylor and the commission have been locked in a legal tug-of-war, of sorts. Though he is---as of his on-the-record interview --- continuing to receive a pay-cheque, he said CHRC managers "are trying to get me to resign by giving me huge amounts of money. They keep sending me offers to settle. They say: 'Take all this money, but don't sue us.' Taylor insisted he would not accept any offers because first, he is not interested in money; and secondly, "it's not their money anyway. It's yours --- the taxpayers' --- money."
Moreover, he said, the commission has "even offered to say I would not be s\resigning, but rather, I would be laid off. (The commission) will give me a letter of recommendation saying that I am one of the most important human rights lawyers in the past decade. I am an ardent supporter of human rights. I am this wonderful, wonderful person."
Taylor wants to launch a civil action, a defamation and wrongful dismissal suit, against the CHRC and certain managers: "But I have to start through the grievance process," he said. "And here is a problem. First, you file a grievance with the head of your agency. What is she going to say? 'What? A grievance against me? Let me think about this for a minute. Oh no, I turn it down.'"
Next, Taylor said, he is required to go through his union, which in his opinion, "is totally useless. It is called PIPS, the Professional Institute of Public Service. I have been Complaining about it for the past ten years. The Union takes $38 a month from my pay and does nothing with it. In this latest episode, I complained to the PIPS president on the 16th of May, in writing. I have received no response yet.
The collective agreement is useless if there is no provision for a complaint against a person who is going to hear your grievance. Now, even first-year law students understand procedural fairness and natural justice. How can a person rule on something that is a complaint against that person?"
He said he plans to file a civil suit in the Ontario Superior Court after he hears back from the union, and after he has "exhausted all appeals and other avenues. You have to jump through the hoops. There is no justice."
He continued: "What people do not understand, and what I cannot get anyone except my wife to understand, is that I am not doing this for money. I am doing this because this country discriminates against people and the Government of Canada allow (its Managers) to get away with discrimination by having an inefficient human rights commission."
So why did Taylor speak to the newspaper, only to paraphrase and summarize what the Watson Wyatt report already said? " My reason for speaking out was to make sure the managers didn't bury this report, like they had done to the others," he said. "In the past, employee surveys had just been put on the back burner and no one had anything to do with them. In this instance, managers expected the staff would participate in the Watson Wyatt survey, and then things would just sort of blow over."
Taylor's troubles didn't start with the media attention last May. Indeed, he had been bitter and complaining internally for tears he admitted. "I have hundreds of e-mails that I sent to managers saying that international travel was not mandated by the Canadian Human Rights Act. I said, 'You have no jurisdiction outside of this country. It is totally unlawful to spend taxpayers' money on this.' No one paid attention." He added he frustrated his bosses so much that, "I think they had to dream something up to get rid of me."
Before he spoke on the survey to the Globe and Mail Taylor said he first requested permission to make the comments and his superiors at the commission granted it. Four days later, Taylor said he was called into his Boss's office, given a letter, and ushered out the door with two security guards at his side. The letter listed the reasons for the suspension as the newspaper interview, as well as Taylor's conduct in a case before the Human Rights Tribunal involving Correctional Services Canada (CSC).
Taylor told Canadian Lawyer he is the lawyer the commission can least afford to lose; "I was handling about 15 separate litigation cases. The next lawyer was handling three."
The case involving CSC is "an egregious case of race discrimination against a nurse," he explained. "The complaint about me came from the corrections department lawyer. "During the tribunal hearing, said Taylor, he was able to get all his evidence in despite many objections by opposing counsel. The CSC lawyer "kept the complainant on the stand for five days of Cross-examination. I had had her on for only three-quarters of a day. I said to the tribunal, "(Five days) is too long for anybody. This is further victimization and discriminates against this woman.' Professional lawyers do not keep a witness on the stand for five days, not even in a murder trial. It was ludicrous." When the opposing counsel objected to Taylor's objections, apparently including calling some of his questions "moronic," Taylor said he called the lawyer "an amateur" and responded further: "I don't give a shit. My job is to protect the public interest here and I will object if I find it necessary. (The CSC lawyer) demanded an apology for being called an amateur. Thai is all on the record. Yes I swore at him, and that is part of the complaint against me too, that I called him 'a fucking amateur.'"
Eddie Taylor is not your conventional lawyer. Coming to the profession as his third career---his friends reveal that he was previously a professional boxer and a freelance news producer---Taylor graduated from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, about 13 years ago. Married to a lawyer and with one teenage son, Taylor---who is a rugged six-foot-two---wears his graying hair in a long, shiny ponytail. He sports, when he's not at work, cowboy boots, jeans and a decorated vest over a logo-emblazoned t-shirt the uniform of a biker who drives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he does.
Through his undeniable inflammatory remarks about the CHRC, Taylor comes across a passionate advocate for human rights. He's also an avowed socialist, and he curses liberally and unapologetically. "This is not a human rights society," he told Canadian Lawyer. "it is a capitalist, fascist society. People are only interested in their own assholes."
But he has connections to high places: "Eddie and I worked very closely together on the Ernst Zundel case about three years ago," says Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Bonnie, who was appointed in January 1998, about five months after the four year hate literature case began. Justice Bonnie, then with the Toronto firm McCarthy Tetrault, had been retained by the CHRC as a private lawyer to help defend the public's position in the case.
"Eddie is a very feisty lawyer, and was vary committed to what he was doing at the commission. He is a highly conscientious person. Obviously I have no knowledge of the intricacies of the dispute with the CHRC, but I can say it was a pleasure to work with him as a human rights lawyer.
About Taylor's unconventional appearance, Justice Bonnie said: "Lawyers come in different shapes and sizes. That is fine, and he wears a nice suit when he comes to court."
John Rosen, of Toronto's Rosen Waser---and no stranger to public controversy, having endured the Paul Bernardo videotape legal fiasco from 1995 to 2000---also worked with Taylor on the Zundel case, representing the intervenor Simon Wiesenthal Centre. "I got to know Eddie on a professional basis quite well," he said. "I thought he was very bright and knowledgeable about the issues---he knew his stuff. I was impressed, though he did lack a certain amount of legal experience in terms of dealing with evidence. But overall, Eddie is a capable lawyer."
"We had lunch a couple of times and I can tell you he is shy, and he shuns the limelight, but he has a ton of integrity."
Rosen believes the CHRC. "is in trouble. It is in turmoil. I don't know the exact right and wrong of the situation, but clearly, if Eddie spoke out he had good reason to do so. He is not a whiner at all. He must have felt something was seriously wrong, and that if someone from the inside didn't say something, more harm would have been done than good."
Rosen added: Yes, he wore his hair in a ponytail at the federal court, and not one judge ever said 'Boo' about his appearance." On the other hand, though, Rosen said, "I know Eddie rubbed some people the wrong way at the commission. I understand that from other sources."
So what's going to happen to Eddie Taylor the whistle blower? Thomas Brooker, an Ottawa employment lawyer and sole practitioner for about 10 years, says there's no easy answer. "'Whistle-blower' is not really a legal term," he said. "And there is no Canadian legislation in this area. What it comes down to from an employment law perspective is, are the statements true? Then, did they harm the employer? If they did, are they grounds for dismissal, or some lesser type of discipline?
There are all kinds of historic common law cases that talk about loyalty and the master servant relationship. There are also cases that deal with the fiduciary responsibility of a key employee not to harm the employer."
However, he added these mostly relate to private employment arrangements. "In government it is different," he said, "There are cases that deal with freedom of speech for public servants, but they mainly concern speaking out on political issues."
John Rosen says the matter's clear: "Lawyers have an obligation to be whistle-blowers when the circumstances warrant it. In fact, law society rules require lawyers to officially report on the unethical and unprofessional conduct of their colleagues."
"If you are an in-house counsel, and you see an illegality that is about to occur, you have an obligation to report the matter, if not to senior management---indeed, sometimes senior management may be responsible---the to the audit committee, to the auditor, to the shareholders, maybe even to the authorities outside the company.
"So I think what Eddie Taylor did is consistent with his professional obligation, if in fact there is a basis for what he said."
Rosen is among the many Canadian lawyers who would like to see whistle-blower protection legislation enacted in Canada, the way it has been in the United States. "The Americans have dealt with this problem." He said. "They want employees to come forward in all circumstances to blow the whistle on corruption, without fear of recrimination. Without this law, the next whistle-blower feels constrained, does not do the right thing, and we end up with a rotten system".
Former Gowling Lafleur Henderson partner Ian McGilp who now works as a consultant lawyer from his farm near Niagara Falls, Ontario, says whistle blowing "is a subject dear to my heart." The former political philosophy professor who taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, worked as a lawyer for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union almost 20 years ago. "The union leaders were concerned about members getting into trouble for speaking out," he said, "and for good reason."
He recalled the Charter case, Attorney General of Ontario v. Gowling & Henderson et al, 12 D.L.R.(4th) 623, that was reported in August 1984 and never appealed. The case involved a provincial government employee and OPSEU member who disclosed highly confidential information saying the provincial jails were dangerously overcrowded. Said McGilp: "The whistle-blower took cabinet documents that showed the conditions of the jails posed a serious risk to the like and physical security of the guards and to the inmates living there."
The Ministry of the Attorney General, needless to say, was not pleased. It immediately brought an application for an order requiring the union and its lawyers to identify the whistle-blower, to return all documents, to destroy all copies of documents and "to undertake never to see, hear or speak about them again." Said McGilp. "That order was granted in full."
In other words, the court was not sympathetic to the whistle-blower at all. In its judgment, it stated: "Unless there is some justification for their actions, the persons who have turned over to the lawyers confidential Cabinet documents have committed a flagrant breach of their fiduciary duty to keep secret confidential matters which come to them in the course of their employment. The Crown is entitled to the documents to assist in discovering the source of the disclosure and to prevent further disclosures."
Ontario (A.G.) v Gowlings as well as some less celebrated cases involving public service unions across Canada in the 1970s and 1980s did lead to some serious contemplation about whistle-blower protection. McGilp was retained by OPSEU to make submissions on its behalf to the Law Reform Commission of Ontario, which accepted his proposals and went on to draft its own 600-page document in 1986: "The Report on Political Activity, Public Comment and Disclosure by Crown Employee." McGilp called the report "excellent and comprehensive."
Under the title, 'In Defense of Whistle-blowing," the report stated: "If today, government can no longer justify confidentiality for all information---and the proposed new freedom of information legislation bears witness to this significant development---then we (the law reform commissioners) cannot see how the principle of confidentiality can be invoked in order to cover up serious government wrongdoing."
They concluded and recommended that, "as a general principle, whistle-blowers should be protected from disciplinary or other action where they disclose government information that ought, in the public interest, to be disclosed.
The result was Ontario whistle blower protection legislation in 1993, part of Bill 117, that eventually---through two electoral flips of government and three different governing parties---passed Third Reading "The act was passed but never proclaimed into force" explained McGilp.
Indeed, the law was eventually skated into the boards by later governments. In December 1994, Fred Upshaw, then-president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, wrote a letter to then-Premier Bob Rae that the union was "deeply disappointed" the law wasn't implemented.
Proclamation of the law, it seems, was tied to the appointment of a legislature counsel who would advise public servants of their rights under the new law. The NDP government never got around to appointing that counsel before suffering a massive electoral defeat at the hands of the current-ruling Tories, who are not very keen on whistle-blowing laws despite half-hearted attempts in June 2000 to create legislative protection for public servants who wanted to speak out at the Walkerton Inquiry.
Of course, even if the law had been implemented, it's not federal legislation and would not have protected Taylor. But without a high profile Ontario law protecting its thousands of provincial employees, consequently and obviously there has been little, if any, significant and official Canadian pressure on the federal government to enact its own whistle-blower protection act.
McGilp said Taylor is not a typical whistle-blower, since he personally did not release the damning report. "But it is only a little bit different." He explained, "and not in principle. There is nothing magical in taking documents, although usually when somebody wants to criticize his or her employer, what they do is take and reveal documents, because that is how you prove the criticism."
He continued: "It is a difficult question where to draw the line. When can an employee publicly criticize his employer and not be disciplined? The Law Reform Commission did not buy, and did not advance, the proposition, that any employee should be able to criticize his employer anytime he wants. It stated, and I agree with this, that there are some instances, when an employee goes public and criticizes his or her employer, that makes the working relationship too dysfunctional, and in which the employer is justified in dismissing or otherwise disciplining the employee."
When Taylor said his employer had "no moral authority," that may have crossed the line. "How can you go back and work for the place "asked McGilp. "How can you work together with your boss after that?"
Properly done, he added, whistle-blowing can have enormous legal ramifications. Just look at what is happening in tobacco litigation, he said. "This is all because of one whistle-blower. Of course though, his life was ruined. Without disclosing confidences, I can tell you that every whistle-blower I have ever worked with to any extent ended up suffering a complete breakdown, including marital breakup. Whistle-blowing destroys people. The whole world turns against you."
As of the time of writing (early September) it's impossible to say exactly where Eddie Taylor-CHRC stand-of is headed. Will he launch a lawsuit? Or will he, despite his pronouncements to the contrary, finally accept a deal? He insisted to Canadian Lawyer that he would not accept any offers of settlement or sign any waivers to keep quiet and let the agency of the hook for suspending him. "I'm not in this for the money," he said, "It's the principle that counts."
By August 17, Taylor had moved to Toronto, where his wife was transferred following a term clerkship with the Supreme Court of Canada, and he was refusing to make any more public comments. His lawyer, Joel Richler of Toronto's Blake Cassels and Graydon would not even say whether the case had been settled.
Lynne Cohen is a lawyer and a journalist in Ottawa
IS RIGHTS COMMISSION A 'USELESS EXCRESCENCE?'
At the root of the ongoing crisis, one question nags: Where's the Canadian Human Rights Commission going? It's hard not to support an agency with such lofty principles, and there's no question it's had some successes, not only in winning individual discrimination and major pay equity cases, but also in its having raised the profile of important issues like racism and homophobia in the workplace, and in society in general.
But not every Canadian lawyer endorses what CHRC does. indeed, some argue the place has become nothing more than a fat bureaucracy managed by arrogant status-seekers more interested in traveling the world at taxpayers' expense than in protecting the human rights of homosexuals, ethnic minorities, pardoned criminals or single mothers working for VIA Rail.
Ian Hunter, a professor emeritus in the faculty of law at the University of Western Ontario and who writes frequent columns for a number of publications, was involved in discussions on the creation of the CHRC in the early 1980's. He told the Canadian Lawyer: You can certainly say I am disappointed about what has happened" since consulting with officials on building the agency.
Not wanting to provide further comment, he said his May column in the Globe and Mail still reflects his opinion. In that piece, he said, "I wish to suggest that the commission has become a useless excrescence and that nothing would so become it (and its provincial counterparts) as a quick unlamented demise. When the human rights commissions were first set up, they often claimed that their objective was to work for the day when they were no longer needed; well that day has long since arrived, so good riddance to them.
He said that, far from becoming what the government first envisaged ---"a modest investigative agency" to quickly deal with listed employment complaints within the federal jurisdiction---it has become "a self-important, bloated bureaucracy whose cumbersome investigations move at glacial pace."
Before concluding modern human rights agencies are a blight on humanity, Hunter asked, philosophically: "So where did human-rights commissions go wrong? What was it that transformed agencies intended to protect working people against unjustified discrimination into the thought police of the nanny state, despised almost as much by those they are intended to assist as by those they proceed against?"
Rights group orders Zundel to kill hatesite
By KIRK MAKIN
JUSTICE REPORTER
Saturday, January 19, 2002 – Print Edition,
Page A7
The Canadian Human Rights Commission yesterday ordered Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to kill off a Web site featuring hate propaganda that targets Jews and the Holocaust.
The commission said that whatever free-speech protection may exist for hate material on the Internet is vastly outweighed by the social benefits of eliminating hate-mongering.
"It bears repeating that the expression in those documents does nothing to
advance the underlying values of freedom of expression," commissioners
Claude Pensa and Reva Devins said.
Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, chief commissioner of the CHRC, said the impact of the unregulated Internet to spread hatred could not be underestimated.
The ruling came six years -- and millions of dollars in legal expenses -- after
Mr. Zundel was accused of using his so-called Zundelsite to continue a life-long battle against Jews.
The commission conceded that ordering Mr. Zundel to "cease and desist" from using his Web site has a certain futility. It noted that the material can be easily transferred to any number of "mirror sites" where sympathizers could recreate it.
However, law professor Ed Morgan, a senior official with the Canadian Jewish Congress, said the human-rights battle has been more than worthwhile.
"There is a lot of symbolic value in this," Prof. Morgan said in an interview.
"This has got to be a blow to the Canadian-based, neo-Nazi movement. If there are Canadian-based sites, this will shut them down."
Prof. Morgan said the ruling is in line with a provision the federal government put in its recent antiterrorism bill that permits the regulation of Internet material.
After interrupting the human-rights inquiry with legal motions and appeals since 1996, Mr. Zundel suddenly announced last year that he had lost interest in fighting it.
In an interview yesterday from his new home in the Smoky Mountain region of Tennessee, Mr. Zundel had little to say about a ruling he described as tiresome and irrelevant. "You're talking to the new Ernst Zundel," he said. "They used to accuse me of Holocaust denial. Well, now I'm in Canada-denial. I have put Canada behind me."
Mr. Zundel, who remarried recently and sells his own paintings for a living, said he does not intend to risk returning to Canada, lest he be stopped on some pretext at the border.
"I'm not going to give them the satisfaction," he said. "I will not set foot in Canada again."
The commission described the Zundelsite yesterday as a place in which "Jews are vilified in the most rabid and extreme manner," equating it to a schoolyard bully whose constant taunting "can erode an individual's personal dignity and self-worth."
The commissioners added that the ease with which vast amounts of hate information can be posted on the Internet renders it a much greater threat to social harmony than the telephone ever was
From the Sunday, February 3, 2002 Vancouver Province Newspaper, Page A33c
Sex-assault priest to Minister again
CALGARY – A Roman Catholic priest who was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in Ontario is working as a parish priest in Calgary.
Rev. James Kneale was appointed last year as a priest at St. Patrick's Church. It is his first such assignment since he pleaded guilty in 1999 to sexually assaulting a 16-year-pld boy in the 1980s. He was sentenced to nine months in custody and later granted a conditional sentence.
A representative of the Calgary diocese said Kneale paid for his crime and deserves another chance.
But his victim, John Caruso, now 32 was devastated to learn the man who assaulted him 17 years ago is back in a church and around children.
“He's a sick, sick man,” he said from his home in Fort Erie, Ont.
Priest quits
Vancouver Province February 8, 2002 Page A2
A Roman Catholic priest resigned from his Calgary church yesterday after some parishioners made it known they felt betrayed upon discovering that “Father Jim” was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in his past.
The bishop who hired Rev. James Kneale apologized for not telling the church's congregation about the priest's past, but added he didn't purposely try to hide the man's criminal record.
“In hindsight, I recognize that I made a mistake in not consulting with the parishioners of St. Patrick's parish in an open and responsible manner,” Bishop Fred Henry said.
I don't blame anybody but myself. I'm the guy who made a bad judgment call…..It's my responsibility.
“I goofed.”
Parishioner Erza Malone said the discovery of Kneale's criminal record has divided St. Patrick's Catholic Church.
“People are pretty upset,” she said. “Some believe he should be forgiven, but many say they could no longer sit in church and listen to him preach.
“I'm glad he resigned
BRITISH COLUMBIA HACKER LINKED TO ARREST
OF U.S. JUDGE IN SEX SCANDAL
By Jason Proctor, Staff Reporter, Vancouver Province Newspaper Page A8 02/24/02
A shadowy Langley computer hacker is at the centre of a court case in which a California judge is charged with downloading child pornography.
The B.C. Hacker – who goes by the handle Omnipotent – accessed a computer diary and porn images allegedly found on the work and home computers of orange County Judge Ronald C Kline.
The anonymous hacker passed the information to Internet watchdog Pedowatch, leading to Kline's arrest.
But evidence exists to suggest that Omnipotent, the so-called “predator-hunter,” may be a predator himself, in possession of large quantities of child porn that he allegedly swapped with the judge.
The founder of Pedowatch to the Sunday Province the case left her questioning the tactics of her source. “I believe this hacker guy is just as much trouble as the judge is,” said Julie Posey, the crusader who runs the Colorado-based Internet watchdog.
“The case was good. The information was good. But I don't like the idea of a guy out there trading child pornography with the judge.”
The case – which was reported on the front page of the Los Angeles Times – casts a rare light on the seedy world of internet pedophiles and the self-appointed vigilantes who hunt them.
According to court documents the hacker accessed the computers of thousands of people he suspected in trading in child porn.
But Kline's attorney has suggested the hacker could have doctored the judge's diary and computer images. The hacker remains anonymous, even in a police affidavit made public as part of the Kline Prosecution.
Posey, of Pdeowatch, says the hacker told her he was working as an informant for U.S. Customs. But, after they had received the hacker's information relating to the judge, detectives in Irvine Calif., had trouble tracking him down. Ron Carr, a detective working on the case, eventually traced Omnipotent to Langley B.C. He discovered that, the man was known to RCMP, who had used him as an informant.
The hacker assisted RCMP last year in the prosecution of an Alberta man who distributed nude pictures of his right-year old daughter over the Internet. According to the affidavit, Canadian Police are no longer working with the hacker, who allegedly possessed “large quantities of child pornography.” Carr who recently interviewed the hacker, refused to name him.
Members of another anti-pedophile internet group, Predator-Hunter.com, say Omnipotent has provided them with information that led to the arrest of several U.S. child predators – including a Kentucky man accused of circulating photographs worldwide.
The head of Predator-Hunter.com says on his website the case has caused problems for his group.
“We have been told that he (Omnipotent) also doubled as a collector of and a possible participant in child pornography,” writes Michael Vaughan.
“We have been told that we are protecting a pedophile. One who may have given us information that led to the arrest of others, but a pedophile nonetheless.”
From TIME magazine
Can the Church Be Saved?
As allegations of sex abuse — and official cover-up — mount, outraged Roman Catholics are urging their leaders to redeem and reform the faith
By Johanna McGeary
The shock is that so many cases have spilled like stained vestments into public view — not just in Boston but in Los Angeles and St. Louis, Mo., and Philadelphia and Palm Beach, Fla., and Washington and Portland, Maine, and Bridgeport, Conn. The horror is not their singularity but their ghastly similarity: claims of a Roman Catholic priest sexually abusing children, and the church covering it up whether it involves Father Dan or Father Oliver or Father Rocco ...
Or Father Brett. Frank Martinelli was an impressionable 14-year-old altar boy who yearned to be a priest. He saw a holy future unfolding when the Rev. Laurence Brett, the charismatic young priest at St. Cecilia's in Stamford, Conn., enrolled him in a select teen group dubbed Brett's Mavericks. It wasn't quite the kind of special relationship with a trusted priest that Martinelli expected. On a
Washington field trip, Father Brett allegedly fondled young Frank in a bathroom. Martinelli claims that while Brett was driving him home, the priest urged the boy to give him oral sex, blessing it as a way to receive Holy Communion. Like most youngsters 30 years ago, Frank was too ashamed, too scared, too uncomprehending ever to say a word.
Martinelli, now 54, didn't become a priest after all. He married, had a son and settled in Milwaukee to work as a consultant for nonprofit organizations. His life was marred by inexplicable confusions, anger, depression and lost faith. Not until one night in 1991 did he understand why. He was talking on the phone to an old Connecticut friend when the friend blurted out that he had been abused back in those Maverick days by Father Brett. "I had this rush of feeling," Martinelli told Time. "I realized, Wow, that's what happened to me." He began seeing a therapist and a year later filed a civil suit in New Haven, Conn., federal court against Brett and the Bridgeport diocese, then led by Bishop Edward Egan.
Church authorities in Bridgeport had discovered Brett's proclivities as early as 1964. They did not report him to civil authorities or warn parishioners, and they let him minister at ecclesiastical posts around the country. In 1990 when Egan took over as bishop, he met with Brett and later noted, "All things considered, he made a good impression. In the course of our conversation, the particulars of his
case came out in detail and with grace." As a result, Egan let Brett come back to Bridgeport as a priest.
In November 1992 Brett confessed to an indiscretion and later to two more — but stayed in the ministry. Then came Martinelli's allegations, and then another accuser surfaced. A week later, Egan finally told Brett he could no longer serve as a priest. In mid-1997 a jury decided the diocese had breached its duty by not warning Martinelli of the priest's predilections and awarded him nearly $1 million. An appeals court overturned the award, and the case was later settled for an undisclosed amount.
Today Brett is on the run and still officially a priest, despite pleas to defrock him. Egan, now Cardinal and Archbishop of New York and perhaps the pre-eminent prelate in the U.S., is under heavy fire to explain his handling not just of Brett but of other pending cases of priests whose abuses he allegedly hushed up while in Bridgeport. For Martinelli, there's still no solace. He would, he says, have settled for nothing in cash if he just could have got a public apology.
Thousands of Frank Martinellis and hundreds of Father Bretts cast a dark shadow over the Roman Catholic Church this Eastertide — and so have the U.S. bishops who let the crimes fester. The crisis gathers steam day after day, with perhaps 2,000 priests accused of abuse across the country and hot lines jamming with more victims' calls. It is not just what Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law called "a tragic error" but a spiritual and financial body blow to church authority as well, demoralizing to every man who wears a Roman collar. Lives have been hurt, trust damaged and the credibility of the church to speak on social issues tainted.
How long does it take powerful institutions to learn that it's not just the crime, it's also the cover-up that damns you? The Roman Catholic Church kept silent for decades about the immoral, even criminal betrayal of its children, but in this era of openness, that just won't do. When priests stand in their pulpits this holiest week of the Christian year, what are they going to say to congregations shamed, in pain, frustrated, angry that so much was so hidden for so long? As the Roman Catholic faithful in America are bidden to rejoice that a risen Christ will save their souls, they now want to hear how their church is going to save itself.
After weeks of silence, Pope John Paul II issued a vague Holy Week message, saying, "As priests we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination" and offered "concern" for the victims. But the muted words would not satisfy those looking for a concrete course of action. In a Palm Sunday pastoral letter, Egan reiterated his policy of overseeing abuse allegations himself but urged victims to bring them to the attention of police. And he defended his Bridgeport conduct like a lawyer: every case disclosed had occurred on his predecessor's watch; he took the word of experts when he recycled abusive priests back into the ministry.
Culture of Secrecy
Many of us may have just awakened to the stunning extent of priestly pedophilia since January, when the Boston Globe exposed the predations of John Geoghan and the habit the diocese had of systematically concealing them. But the U.S. church has known all about it — how deep sexual misconduct ran, how widespread, how frequent — at least since the first big abuse scandal broke at a Louisiana trial in 1985, when the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe was sentenced to 20 years for molesting dozens of children, who were awarded a combined $18 million in damages.
In the years that followed, there were more big cases and big financial settlements — an estimated $1 billion or more — but only halfhearted efforts to adopt firm guidelines on how to handle the problem. Early on, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, then a canon lawyer at the Vatican embassy in Washington, drafted a 100-page report advising that offenders be moved away from kids, that victims be succored and that the public be told the truth. But whenever a fresh case erupted, the church said it was an aberration, an isolated example, one bad apple. Or media bashing by an anti-Catholic press.
Dioceses lapsed into a pattern of denial and deception. They treated sexual pathology as a moral failure and crime as a religious matter. The Roman Catholic Church is a stern hierarchy that has always kept its deliberations secret, policed itself and issued orders from the top. An obedient priest moves up in power by keeping his head down, winning rewards for bureaucratic skills and strict orthodoxy. When Cardinals are created, they take a vow before the
Pope to "keep in confidence anything that, if revealed, would cause a scandal or harm to the church." When it came to sex abuse, the Vatican essentially told bishops, You're on your own. But if saving the church from scandal was literally a cardinal virtue, then the bishops of America's 194 dioceses who had direct responsibility for priestly misconduct would make it their first principle. Better by far never to let the public know.
If allegations came to diocese attention, the bishop, a power unto himself who often operated as if ordination gave him a share of the Pope's infallibility, acted as prosecutor, judge, sentencer. Desperate to retain even sinful men, as the number of priests shrank alarmingly, and ever putting the image of the church first, bishops refined the system. Convince the family that publicity would harm the faith. Don't report to the police; don't warn the parish. Treat the priest with
confession, time out at a discreet rehab center and Christian forgiveness; then let him resume duties at a new parish, the same way they dealt with whisky priests' alcoholism. For years the bishops believed, or made themselves believe, pedophilia could be "cured," until the serial molestations and multiple victims and repeat offenders proved it wasn't so. Only the most recalcitrant recidivists were eventually "laicized" — forced to give up their priestly vocation — long after they had done their worst. And if a victim finally sued, the strategy was to admit nothing, buy silence, settle out of court and seal the deal with a confidentiality contract. The church, said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk who testified as an expert for plaintiffs in priest-abuse cases, "took a very defensive position, rather than proactive."
It is hard to remember in this age of confession, but 30, 20, even 10 years ago, children kept silent about sexual molestation. By and large they were ignorant, scared, guilty and sure no one would believe them. "I don't know that I identified it [as abuse] then," Chris Dixon, 40, told Time. He came forward only this month to detail two-decades-old allegations against Bishop Anthony O'Connell, of Palm Beach, Fla., who resigned a few days later: "Why would anyone believe me? I thought my parents would blame me."
Devout families — and predator priests frequently chose their victims from the most ardent parishioners — had been taught for generations to exalt, respect and trust priests. Who could imagine dear Father Tim — who came to dinner, played with the kids, counseled mom, acted like a dad — would do something so sinful? Doubting the priest would cost you your spiritual security. When Ralph Sidaway told his mother roughly 65 years ago that a parish priest had molested him, "she beat the crap out of him, because you don't say that about priests," says Sheldon Stevens, a Florida lawyer who handled a case lodged by Ralph's adult son Kevin, who says he was molested by the Rev. Rocco D'Angelo as a child. The church knew it and used it to dissuade people from pressing complaints.
Nor is there any way of knowing whether the pedophile epidemic is being checked. Almost every case on record happened years ago. Even if it has grown easier for adults to reveal shameful incidents in their past, it's still hard to get young males to come forward while the abuse is going on. "The last thing I want to do as a teenager is run around telling everybody some priest gave me a b___ j__," says John Falls, a grown-up Californian who says he was molested by his\ boyhood priest. Says Neil Blake, a New Mexico lawyer litigating abuse cases: "I don't know if priests are still out there molesting kids, because they won't tell anyone about it. We'll find out in about 2015."
Here Comes the Law
The horror stories exploding onto front pages are modifying church behavior, whether its leaders like it or not. Under duress, some bishops have scrambled to announce "zero tolerance" toward any priest, past or present, against whom allegations have been made. Up to a dozen Los Angeles priests have been quietly dismissed in recent weeks. Southern California's Orange County diocese removed the Rev. Michael Pecharich from his church in early March as soon as it substantiated a single case of abuse, which was decades old. And when Kathryn Barrett-Gaines and her sister, now in their 30s, contacted the archdiocese in Washington two weeks ago to accuse Monsignor Russell Dillard, 54, the popular pastor of the city's oldest African-American Roman Catholic congregation, of "kissing and inappropriate touching" when they were teens, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick immediately suspended his good friend. Dillard told his spiritual superior he "did not exceed the bounds of propriety" any further than "father-daughter kissing." Nevertheless, McCarrick shipped Dillard off for evaluation at a sexual-abuse clinic, informed the police of the complaint and will not let the much loved pastor return if the sisters are telling the truth.
Already Dillard's loyal, well-educated and well-connected parishioners are vocally contesting his suspension. There's a tough trade-off for swiftly protecting the public: not everyone is comfortable with the lack of due process that zero tolerance provides for the accused. Of course, there was little due process when investigations were left in bishops' hands. And last year the Vatican issued new rules so discreetly that most churchmen don't know that anything was changed. Rome quietly published, in Latin, a papal directive known as a motu proprio (meaning under his personal authority), tucked inside a long annual record of the Holy See. It directed that allegations of sex abuse be brought secretly for judgment by Rome's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the Inquisition, keeping procedures strictly in church control. No mention was made about informing civil authorities.
Nor has the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops produced universal guidelines for how zero-tolerance policies will be fairly administered. Jan Malicki, ordained in Poland, came to North Miami in the late '80s as an associate pastor. In 1998 two women accused him of sexual abuse while one of them was a minor. Malicki says the diocese made him a scapegoat, rushing to announce his imminent
arrest, and then claimed the church bore no responsibility under First Amendment protections. Even though county investigators concluded two years ago that they had no basis to charge him, Malicki is still on a leave of absence. "The archdiocese has left this priest twisting in the wind, trying to wash their hands of this," says his attorney, Ellis Rubin. "Has this gone too far?" wonders Dillard's predecessor at St. Augustine's. "I think every priest now worries every day he may be accused of something."
As the accusations pile up, the church's relationship with the law is facing revision. To this day, only 19 states require clergy to report suspicions or allegations of sex abuse against minors to civil authorities. While legislators rush to write the church into "mandatory reporter" laws, many bishops say they've already pledged to tell the cops of any new charges. Some dioceses, like those in Boston and Bridgeport, are combing through their secret archives to hand over details of all cases, going back 49 years. But in New York, Cardinal Egan has barely noted the changing weather. He will retain power over problem priests for himself, reporting abuse charges to police only if the victims agree and he feels there is "reasonable cause" to believe them. Back files will stay closed.
States are also looking at their statutes of limitation for sex-abuse claims, which differ widely. A few, such as Florida, can pursue criminal charges in most cases, but some states don't allow prosecution more than one or five or 10 years after an injured child turns 18. That has freed most predator priests from criminal convictions and long jail terms. But neither side felt it won a resounding victory when the suit filed by a plaintiff against Denver's highly popular Rev. Marshall Gourley was thrown out because the statute of limitation had expired. Gourley maintains his innocence.
For years most cases that made it to trial were civil complaints, but they were financially devastating, sometimes costing millions. So some dioceses adopted hardball legal tactics that abused victims all over again. A group of 39 plaintiffs have been battling the diocese of Providence, R.I., for as long as 10 years to get recompense for alleged abuse at the hands of 11 priests. Church lawyers attack the victims' credibility and besmirch their families. They bombard victims with as many as 500 written questions, demand 30 years' worth of tax returns, require names and dates for every doctor visited back to age 12. They cross-examine mothers about their children's sex lives. "It's intimidation," says Lee White, 45, one of the plaintiffs. "I feel like I am being reabused."
Looking to the Future
First, the institutional church has to acknowledge the magnitude of the damage. The Pope's cryptic paragraphs at the end of his Holy Thursday letter to priests hardly constituted a ringing mea culpa. At a stiff press conference afterward, Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, a contender for the next pontificate, short-circuited the avalanche of questions with a sample of Vatican stonewalling, sternly defending current policy. Citing the "serious and severe" internal rules the church has applied to pedophile priests, the Cardinal looked up from his text and asked what other institutions had such guidelines. "I would like to know one!" he demanded, waving a finger.
The Vatican has long dismissed all the fuss as "an American problem," as if it plagued no other countries. In the corridors of Rome, prelates disparage the "litigious" nature of U.S. society and blame abusive priests on lax American sexual mores. Complains a Vatican official: "In America there is too much reliance on modern psychology in place of the church's traditional wisdom." Officials say the Pope is greatly pained by the crisis in the U.S. church. But that doesn't mean he is ready or able to confront such an explosive issue.
The papacy hates to bend to outside pressure. St. Paul, Minn., attorney Jeff Anderson, who has been suing the church regularly for abuse victims, says, "They're not going to change until a bishop goes to jail and every bishop hears the door clang behind him and that sound resonates to the Vatican."
But it wouldn't take a Vatican II-style revolution to start improving the church's handling of sex abuse. Atlanta's Archbishop John Donoghue ticked off a few lessons in a recent pastoral statement: Report accusations immediately to the law. Cooperate in investigations. Move the accused away from kids. If he's found guilty, bar him from the ministry.
Scott Appleby, director of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, says the Conference of Catholic Bishops should immediately hammer out an enforceable uniform code of binding policies that enshrine those principles. "The problem in the past," he says, "has been the autonomy of each bishop, free to adopt or ignore conference policies." Many have suggested that each diocese name a board of independent lay advisers — lawyers, psychologists — to oversee every abuse case. More rigorous screening and modernized seminary training for sexually immature priests would help too.
Good baby steps, all. But growing numbers of Roman Catholics, such as Northwestern University professor of religion Cristina Traina, say that's not enough to make up for the church's "extreme violation" of trust. Many victims accused of suing for the money say that what they really want is spiritual generosity: an apology from the church, acknowledging that crimes were committed and explaining how the church let known pedophiles abuse again. Anger will not begin to heal until prelates from the top down profess genuine confession and true contrition, says Traina. "There has to be a public expression on behalf of all the people involved in the cover-ups," and then the
power structure that exalted secrecy must be altered to meet "industry standards" of ethical behavior.
Realistically, Rome will not address big reforms while the crisis is boiling. That is a reassuring tradition for the two American Cardinals most implicated in the scandals, Boston's Bernard Law and New York's Egan. But plenty of influential Catholics are suggesting that the U.S. church would benefit from penitential resignations at the top. Says an editorial in the upcoming issue of the national Roman Catholic weekly America: "If early on some bishops had been willing to claim full responsibility and resign, victims, parishes, the media and juries might have been less inclined to vent their anger on the church as a whole. That not one bishop (except the two who were themselves abusers) has resigned during this 15-year-long crisis is astonishing."
If the bishops stay, Roman Catholics would like their leaders to trade the church's culture of secrecy for openness and accountability. The first obligation, says Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, is "to make such matters known." The second is to set transparent rules that hold the church responsible for its mistakes. That clarion call comes from conservative columnists like William J. Bennett, who advises, "Candor and full disclosure are a must if the reputation of the church is to be protected." And it comes from sex-abuse experts like Richard Sipe, who says, "The church is not going to get out of this without opening fully a dialogue and going beneath the secret system of handling things." Even victims say it, over and over. Jim Griley, 39, who says he was abused by California priest Michael Pecharich 30 years ago, is on a mission to break the church of its secrecy. "This is going to bring a cleansing to the church," he says. "They need to turn these stones over. They need to get this out in the open."
The enormity of the scandal has provoked American Roman Catholics as nothing has before to call for debate on controversial doctrines — like celibacy, married priests, women priests. The Rev. Richard McBrien, a religion professor at the University of Notre Dame, thinks these issues lie at the root of the pedophile problem. The Boston archdiocese's official paper last week urged Roman Catholics to question and study whether these age-old tenets are still relevant. Liberal advocates argue that a church struggling to fill its depleted ranks of priests might get more healthy, sexually mature candidates if married men and women were allowed in. But there is no sympathy in Rome for any alteration of the celibate, men-only clergy. The only realistic hope for such drastic reform, says Chester Gillis, a professor of theology at Georgetown University, lies with whoever succeeds the current Pope.
Roman Catholicism has never been a democratic faith. But in an impassioned sermon two weeks ago, Monsignor Clement Connolly, of the Holy Family parish in South Pasadena, Calif., which isn't involved in any of the allegations, challenged authorities to open the church's heart and mind to unprecedented dialogue. "We don't have an instrument in place," he told Time, "but I think if we talk with the people and listen to the people and share with the people, the instrument will emerge."
As Roman Catholics across the country fill the pews for Easter Mass, many lament the scandal that has shaken their belief to the core. "Of course we're outraged," says Herb Timm, a Winnetka, Ill., parishioner. Holy Family worshiper Ed Ternan called it a "milestone moment in the life of the church," tragic for the victims, tragic for the priests, tragic for the church. "The old way of dealing with it by not dealing with it is not going to work." Instead church leaders need to pray that they can find the remedy before parishioners lose their faith.
— Reported by: Rebecca Winters/ Bridgeport, Siobhan Morrissey/Palm Beach, Sean Scully/Los Angeles, Maggie Sieger/Chicago, Simon Crittle/Providence, Sarah Sturmon Dale/Minneapolis, Andrew Goldstein and
Sally Donnelly/Washington, Jeff Israely/Rome, Tim Padgett/Miami and
Deirdre van Dyk /New York
Teacher who abused boys named dangerous offender
GLOBE AND MAIL PRINT EDITION
By JANE GADD, COURTS REPORTER, Friday, May 10, 2002 – Page A18
A teacher who sexually abused students during his 38-year career with four Toronto school boards has been jailed indefinitely after a judge declared him a dangerous offender.
David McClure, a once-popular science teacher who used his lab full of snakes and other reptiles to lure boys to stay after class, was shunted from one school to another for years because of administrators' "not-in-my-backyard" attitudes, said Mr. Justice Bruce Hawkins of the Ontario Superior Court.
Convicted three years ago of sexual offences ranging from fondling to anal intercourse with 11 students aged between eight and 13, Mr. McClure, 65, remains unrepentant and is at high risk of re-offending if ever released, the judge found.
"He continues to deny the more egregious of the offences and excuses the
other offences by painting himself as a victim of seduction."
In addition to the 11 offences for which he was convicted in 1999, Mr. McClure was found guilty at the dangerous-offender hearing of sexually abusing four more young boys.
The offences were committed from 1962 to 1993. Victims who testified ranged in age from early 20s to late 40s.
A slew of victim-impact statement revealed that many of the victims suffered deep psychological damage.
One of them, who is now a real-estate agent and father of two, testified that
Mr. McClure persuaded him at the age of 12 that it was natural for men and boys to have sex: "He said it was like Batman and Robin. . . . He said 99 per cent of men have tried it and the other 1 per cent are liars."
PEDOPHILE PRIESTS ABUSING BOYS ARE HOMOSEXUAL PEDOPHILES
ANY MAN SEXUALLY ABUSING ANY BOY
IS
BY DEFINITION
A
HOMOSEXUAL PEDOPHILE
THE EDITOR IS "GAY" BUT NOT "QUEER"
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