WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
When James and Tony Charlie first arrived at the Kuper Island residential school in British Columbia, they were given identification numbers that were pasted on their clothes and put on lists for the tasks.
“Sometimes they weren’t even our names, it was just the number,” Tony said.
The brothers, born just 14 months apart, began attending school in 1964 when Tony was 13 and James 12. They are now among the many children abused by the Catholic clergy in residential schools across Canada.
“I have to live my life today with all those pains and all those memories, all those incidents, forever, every night, every day,” Tony said.
Kuper Island was ruled by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order that ran 48 of Canada’s residential schools.
Some referred to the isolated island, located between Vancouver Island and the mainland west coast, as the Alcatraz of Canada.
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Listen to the new CBC podcast at Cooper Islandwhich includes documents and testimonies from survivors and testimonies detailing years of student abuse.
James and Tony can be counted among the many children abused by the Catholic clergy in residential schools across Canada. They attended Kuper Island Residential School off the coast of British Columbia. (Sent)
9 refugee sex offenders in Ottawa
The famous school, its white cross and the bell tower were demolished in the early eighties. The name Kuper, claimed as Penelakut in 2010, the first local nation to which the land belongs, has also disappeared.
The road to reconciliation is almost over. In an effort to locate Glenn Doughty, the sly brother who abused young children on Kuper Island, CBC News discovered a retirement home in Ottawa where Catholic clerics convicted of sex crimes are offered a place to living after being released from prison.
The CBC has confirmed that at least nine convicted sex offenders – men who abused children in residential schools, indigenous communities in the north and several parishes across the country – have taken refuge in the Springhurst residence, owned by the Oblates.
Those awaiting trial were also offered shelter, and out-of-order Catholic priests have been included in the past.
Regardless of the situation or the crimes committed, Springhurst residents have their needs met for the rest of their lives. The head of the Oblates says it is part of his care and vigilance after imprisonment.
Older brother-in-law Glenn Doughty was convicted of sex offenses against children in two former residential schools in British Columbia and until recently lived in a Oblate residence in Ottawa. (Glenn Doughty / Facebook)
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Critics say survivors, including those reduced to being identified as a number in their childhood, lack this support and security after the crimes committed against them.
The Charlie brothers were forced to live in separate flats in the residential school, but now, decades later, they share horrible memories of the abuse they suffered.
Tony, who walks with a cane, still remembers his presentation to Brother Doughty. Within days of Doughty’s arrival on Kuper Island, he took the boy to his room and invited him to his bed.
Sometimes he got drunk and we all knew he would be a sexual predator every night. – James Charlie
“It was very shocking that this happened, because I only knew him,” he said.
Doughty was going to look for other guys.
“Sometimes he got drunk and we all knew he would be a sexual predator every night,” said James Charlie, who still lives on the island.
“The next morning the poor man could hardly walk. But no one said anything because it might be his turn tonight.”
In 2002, Doughty was sentenced to three years in prison for his historic crimes at Kuper Island School, including assaulting a man, gross indecency, and a felony robbery with 11 different victims. These were the laws of the books when the crimes took place in the 60’s and 70’s.
James calls Doughty’s time in prison for crimes on Kuper Island “nothing.”
After all, it was Doughty’s fourth conviction for crimes against children in different parts of the country.
Tony, left, and James recently visited the site of the former Kuper Island residential school with CBC journalist Duncan McCue. (Duncan McCue / CBC)
Series of convictions
Initially convicted in Thunder Bay in the late 1980s, Doughty was found guilty of sexually abusing young students at a residential school in Williams Lake, BC.
Dolores Pflanz, who worked at Kuper Island Residential School in 1970, says she witnessed Doughty’s inappropriate behavior with students.
It was in the courtroom when the judge spoke sternly to Doughty and the Oblates in 2002.
“He told the blessed priest, ‘If you want to take care of him, there must be someone in his presence at all times. You have to get the door out of his bedroom. He can’t even go to the bathroom alone.’ Pflanz recalled.
Doughty apologized and expressed remorse. It became a responsibility that the Oblates say they took seriously.
Ken Thorson, head of the Oblate order, said Doughty “had been living in Springhurst” since he was released from prison.
Springhurst is located in downtown Ottawa, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood and only 200 meters from a city park. Over the years it has housed several members of the clergy who were accused or convicted of sex crimes. (Julie Ireton / CBC)
“I want to die in peace”
But in late 2020, after nearly two decades of living with free room and meals, Doughty left Springhurst and order completely.
He is still active on social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. When CBC contacted him by phone last fall, he was at the Rideau Center, a mall in downtown Ottawa.
Doughty didn’t want to talk about his time on Kuper Island, saying, “I’ve had too much pain for this … I’ve suffered so much, so much pain … I want to die in peace.”
In a later conversation, Doughty said his lawyer and psychologist advised him not to talk to CBC anymore.
Although it appears that Doughty still lives in the country’s capital, the Oblates or other authorities no longer actively control him.
“Glenn made the decision to leave the Oblates against my strong impulse,” Thorson said. “It was inflexible that I had to leave. By Canadian law, I can’t force an adult to stay in a place he doesn’t want to stay.”
The home “is useful for the common good,” says the leader
Thorson says he wanted Doughty to stay in order because he believes it is the Oblates’ responsibility to provide “adequate support.”
“I really think we’re doing something that’s useful for the common good by taking care of the needs of our members who have this offensive history,” Thorson said.
Doughty, now 84, has no criminal record since he was released from prison about 20 years ago, but Thorson points out there are still concerns.
“I am concerned about recidivism with any criminal,” he said.
Leona Huggins, pictured here in 2019, was sexually assaulted by a priest when she was young in British Columbia. She is now an advocate for other people who have been abused by the clergy of the Catholic Church in Canada. (Doug Husby / CBC)
Network of survivors of those mistreated by priests
Over the years, Doughty has come across another sex offender convicted of Springhurst. Father John McCann also lived in the residence between trials and after his imprisonment.
Like Doughty, McCann served the Oblates nationwide.
When Leona Huggins was just 12, she answered the phone and brought tea to the priests’ rooms while working at her Oblate parish in New Westminster, BC, about 50 years ago.
McCann paid special attention to her: preparing her and then sexually assaulting her regularly in the 1970s.
“It started to stand out to me,” Huggins said of McCann. “He abused me for a long time.”
In 1990, when Huggins was 29, he discovered that McCann still had access to children and reported him to police. Court documents show that the Oblates quickly moved McCann to one of his residences.
I knew that if I created a group of young people I would abuse other people: Leona Huggins
McCann was eventually convicted of six counts of sexual abuse of girls under the age of 16 and served 10 months in prison.
For many years after his release, he lived in Springhurst.
Then, in 2011, Huggins whistled again after discovering that he was still ministering to an Ottawa congregation with children. At the time, the archdiocese said it was unaware of McCann’s record.
“He knew his method of operation. He knew that if he created a group of young people he would abuse other people,” said Huggins, now an advocate for the Survivors Abuse Network by priests.
McCann was fired from the ministry, but Huggins says she was convicted by the church of “ruining a man’s life.”
“It’s hard to see that these men are so well cared for when the survivors haven’t been,” Huggins said. “Not only were they ignoring me, they were excluding me for something I should have been thankful for.”
McCann never faced any more charges. He was 89 when he died in 2018 at an Ottawa hospice, after spending many years in Springhurst.
“For every victim who has the courage to show up, there are probably five who didn’t. And I can tell you that in McCann’s case, I know four,” Huggins said.
“It’s hard to see that these men are so well cared for”
Leona Huggins, who was sexually assaulted by a priest in the 1970s, says it is discouraging to see how clergy members who have been convicted of sex offenses are well cared for in Ottawa when survivors are ostracized.
Protection and monitoring of aggressors
The Springhurst residence is owned by one of the various portfolio companies formed by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, whose stated goal is to “provide health care, maintenance and other benefits to needy priests and brothers, old or sick who are members of Roman Catholicism, religious orders and …