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The synod passed "empowering motions" enabling the local bishop and executive committee to wind up the affairs of the diocese within the next twelve months, to receive and act upon any proposal made by the federal government, and to take legal action "to determine whether or not parish property is owned by the diocese or whether it is held in trust for the parishes".

Archbishop Crawley told ENI that during debate on the synod resolutions, "there was no blaming, no whining. There were profound emotional expressions of concern for the native members of the church who had survived St George's School. The people showed great courage, great dignity, great compassion and voted with their heads up and flags flying."

At the opening session on October 13, several striking presentations were made. "There was a presentation by the native people of the diocese which was very powerful," Crawley said. "It was a visual demonstration of the need for native people to move from a patriarchal, dependency system under the white society to a position of personal, social and economic independence."

Then representatives of Cariboo's 17 parishes each read and submitted a one-page statement about their parish. "They were very powerful and moving. Without exception they called for healing and reconciliation."

The archbishop told ENI that Bishop Cruikshank "gave a magnificent charge in which he expressed concern about a backlash in the white community against the native community, and how the church must struggle against that".

Crawley described the government's action in taking legal action against the churches as "foolishness ... it is counter-productive. They are going to sue the church out of existence, and then they will have lost the grassroots contact with a significant portion of the native population of Canada. Right across the country we have over 200 native parishes, over 70 native clergy and four aboriginal bishops.

"All that will be lost if they keep on suing us."

The archbishop added: "The government was caught flat-footed by the intensity and size of this movement—they did a kind of knee-jerk reaction—when you are sued, you fight back—thinking it was strictly a legal problem. They began to realize that it is a political, social, and economic problem. They have to respond on a wider basis than simply fighting court actions."

In the past two weeks, "the government has begun to change its stance," Crawley told ENI. "The overall direction of the matter has been taken out of the hands of the Justice Department and Indian Affairs and put in the hands of Deputy Prime Minister Herb Gray [who is known in political circles for building consensus]. Representatives of the [Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and United] churches have [recently] had two meetings with Gray. They are engaged in what might be called 'meaningful conversations'."

Crawley said that members of the Cariboo diocese had been profoundly affected by the issue. "For the people of the diocese it has been a lesson. They have suddenly felt what the native people—not just in the residential schools, but in general in our country—have felt for the last 150 years: controlled by forces outside of themselves."

There were between 4,000 and 4,500 members on the parish rolls, the archbishop said. "According to government statistics, there are 9,000 people within the boundaries of the diocese who claim themselves to be Anglican and of these about 2,000 are aboriginal.

"The diocese of Qu'Appelle on the Saskatchewan prairie is likely to be the next to be challenged by escalating legal costs in relation to the residential schools. Archbishop Crawley said: "It is quite a large diocese—bigger in geographic area and membership than the Cariboo, but it still does not have a lot of resources."

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October (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44