B.C. government pledges $10-million funding to Doukhobor sect following formal apology

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The B.C. government formally apologized to survivors from the Sons of Freedom sect and promised $10-million in funding to help the community heal from trauma and properly document and commemorate how the province apprehended and imprisoned about 200 children in the 1950s.

But Attorney-General Niki Sharma said Thursday the reparations do not include sending money directly to up to 80 surviving seniors and the families of those who have died, a core request from the provincial ombudsperson who pressed the government to make a formal apology after decades of failing to do so.

Ms. Sharma, whose apology was announced at a private event in the small Kootenay city of Castlegar, B.C., attended by community members, said $3.7-million of the provincial money will go toward establishing a health and wellness fund that survivors or their progeny can access to get help.

“What we will be focusing on is making sure that survivors and their descendants get the support that they need because of the trauma,” said Ms. Sharma after the emotional event.

Many of the children were mistreated physically and psychologically between 1953 and 1959 while placed in a former tuberculosis sanatorium at New Denver, B.C. Their parents were members of the Sons of Freedom, a group that had broken away from Canada’s Doukhobor population. Sect members settled in the region and in Saskatchewan after they were banished from Russia in the late 19th century for their pacifist views, rejection of the Orthodox Church and refusal to participate in the military.

The Sons of Freedom families were targeted because some of their members used bombings, arson and nudity to protest against the government’s intrusion into their lives. In 1953, the province invoked the Protection of Children Act, which police used to apprehend anyone under 18 who was not enrolled in school.

On Sept. 9 of that year, the RCMP arrested Sons of Freedom adults for parading nude near a school. They also seized 104 children and took them to the New Denver school, located about 100 kilometres north of Castlegar. Most didn’t know any English, but they were not allowed to speak Russian. Parents were allowed one-hour visits every two weeks; those visits included prayer meetings, which cut into the time parents could spend with the children.

“They were hunted by the government, they had to hide in the woods, to hide in various places, so they wouldn’t get torn away from their family,” Ms. Sharma said after listening to survivors at the event.

The rest of the money will go toward preserving and promoting the community’s historic sites, supporting educational and cultural programs, and researching their history and archiving documents, her office said.

The province committed to apologizing last summer after B.C. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke issued a scathing report on the inaction by successive governments over the years. Before the announcement, Mr. Chalke told The Globe and Mail that the province must pay the community for the harms it caused as well as the individuals or their families.

“We’ll be watchful for an indication that both the community and individual compensation is part of that recognition package and, if it’s not, I’ll certainly be discussing with the community my disappointment that that’s not included,” he said.

In a separate statement, Premier David Eby said Thursday the province forcibly removed children, leaving parents to visit them through chain link fences.

“Courts would not let this happen today, and it should not have happened then,” Mr. Eby said. “There is no more sacred a relationship than parent and child, and that relationship was broken for a whole community, resulting in harms that have echoed for generations.”

Ms. Sharma is scheduled to attend another community event in Grand Forks, B.C., on Friday and the Premier will also deliver the apology in the B.C. Legislature on Feb. 27.

With a report from The Canadian Press