By Bradley Bouzane
Global Winnipeg
October 27, 2010
http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/Compensation+report+clergy+abuse+victims+expected+Monday/3736081/story.html
Former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache will deliver his recommendations next week to a New Brunswick diocese which is set to compensate dozens of people sexually abused by clergy members.
Former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache will deliver his recommendations next week to a New Brunswick diocese which is set to compensate dozens of people sexually abused by clergy members.
The report will advise Bishop Valery Vienneau, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bathurst, how much should be paid to the victims. Bastarache said "between 45 and 47" people are involved in the matter, but nine have decided to forego his recommendations and likely will seek compensation through the courts.
He met with the victims over the summer prior to completing his report, due Monday.
"To determine the amounts for each person, I looked at all the cases that went before the courts in the last seven years and established a scale depending on what acts were performed and the impacts on the person," Bastarache said Wednesday.
"I didn't have from the bishop a budget of any kind, so I'm determining the amount that I think is as close as possible to what a person would obtain in the court process, then adding up the numbers and telling him `this is how much money I need."'
Bastarache would not disclose how much total compensation would be recommended, saying it will be up to the bishop to decide whether to make it public.
The former judge was hired earlier this year to locate potential abuse victims linked to Levi Noel, an 83-year-old former parish priest. In January, Noel was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assaults on young boys between 1958 and 1981. He pleaded guilty to 22 charges.
Because he was sought out by the bishop to find the victims and to gauge an appropriate amount of compensation for the individuals - who will remain anonymous in the report - Bastarache said he expects the payments will go through quickly, likely by December.
"The bishop wanted me to determine an amount that was fair; and fair in his mind was what a person would have obtained in the court process, so this is what I've tried to do," he said. "I expect that he will accept that because that was the objective."
The process would see victims receive compensation without having to relive the details of their abuse during a court action, which is why he was surprised a number of victims chose to exclude themselves from the process.
"I think it's in the best interest of those people to participate because it avoids long delays, it avoids testifying - which would be very difficult for some of these people - and it avoids the cost of litigation," said Bastarache, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2008.
"I thought (the nine who declined) had nothing to lose by participating. They were always able at the end to refuse the amount (and continue through the court)."
Bastarache said the people involved in the matter do not renounce any legal rights by going through his recommendations.
Next week's recommendations will start the process for the second major class-action settlement over abuse committed by members of the Catholic Church in Atlantic Canada.
In August 2009, the Diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia settled a class-action lawsuit over abuse claims with a total of $13 million set aside for the victims of Hugh Vincent MacDonald. MacDonald was facing 27 charges involving 18 children when he died in 2004.
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