The 58-year-old plaintiff — anonymized as V.C.A.B. in a lawsuit filed this week in B.C. Supreme Court — names the college, the Vancouver archdiocese, several employees of the college, and the Education Ministry as defendants.
Many of the defendants were members of the Christian Brothers order and some were found guilty of sexual and physical abuses at the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland.
They were transferred to Vancouver College and another Catholic school in B.C. before many of their offences at the orphanage came to light.
V.C.A.B.’s mother enrolled him in Grade 9 at Vancouver College in 1980, soon after his father had died and about a decade after the family was involved in a car crash that killed his older brother.
The lawsuit describes him during his years at Vancouver College as a “vulnerable adolescent with diminished resiliency factors.”
V.C.A.B. alleges employees of the school, including six of the order’s brothers and two lay teachers, physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually abused him for years before he graduated in 1984.
One of the brothers named in the lawsuit, Gerard McHugh, was director of Vancouver College from 1979 to 1981. In that role, the suit alleges McHugh knew that several of the other defendants “had a propensity to sexually, physically and/or emotionally abuse children.”
Another brother, Edward English, confessed to the RCMP in Newfoundland in 1979 that he had sexually abused several boys at Mount Cashel.
A “known threat to children,” English was nonetheless assigned to Vancouver College from 1982 to 1987, where the lawsuit alleges he abused the plaintiff. In 1991, he was convicted of several charges of sexual and physical abuse from his time at Mount Cashel.
Another brother named in the lawsuit was David Burton, a director at Mount Cashel who was convicted of gross indecency in or around 1982 for abuses at the orphanage. Despite this, he was appointed as a teacher at Vancouver College in 1983 or 1984, the lawsuit alleges. A decade after that, he confessed to sexually abusing five orphans at Mount Cashel. Burke was convicted in 1991 of assault for beating a boy at the orphanage.
Among the allegations of “organized child abuse” against V.C.A.B. are that:
• Another brother, Michael Maher “verbally demeaned and physically threatened the plaintiff with intent to inflict mental suffering.”
• Brother Basil Blom hit V.C.A.B. on the buttocks in front of the class and regularly punished him with six hours’ detention on Saturdays, sometimes making him dig ditches instead of doing class work.
• Brothers Ronald H. MacKenzie and English sometimes “demonstrated sudden and arbitrary violent rage” toward the plaintiff, including punches and slaps to the face and grabbing and twisting his neck and shoulder “until he cried out in pain.”
• English grabbed V.C.A.B.’s genital area and twisted it while threatening him.
• And lay teacher John Kavelac physically abused the boy while dismissing his complaint that he had been sexually assaulted by English, instead blaming the boy for causing the assault.
The lawsuit alleges organized abuse at the school “created an environment of control, intimidation, excessive corporal punishment (and) arbitrary and unpredictable violence by both Christian Brothers and students,” which “created the risk of physical harm and enduring psychological harm to its students including the plaintiff.”
It alleges McHugh, as director, and the school in general failed to adequately screen teachers or look into their earlier criminal behaviours, didn’t supervise them properly, and didn’t do enough to stop or punish the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse. It also accuses the defendants of silencing those who complained or blew the whistle on abuse, and in fact of fostering a culture that “not only tolerated but celebrated” the behaviour.
The Education Ministry is accused of failing to investigate abuses at the school when it knew or ought to have known it was going on, the suit claims, even though corporal punishment had been banned in B.C. schools several years earlier.
Among V.C.A.B.’s claims of injury are post-traumatic stress disorder, problems with drugs and alcohol and binge eating, feelings of degradation and powerlessness, flashbacks and nightmares, an inability to trust others and periods of impulsive, reckless, violent and anti-social behaviour.
He is seeking compensation and punitive damages, loss of past and future earning capacity, payment of health care costs and other relief.
The lawsuit claims the conduct of the defendants was “high-handed, malicious, arbitrary (and) highly reprehensible misconduct that departs … from ordinary standards of decent behaviour and is deserving of the court’s rebuke.”
A spokesperson said “the archdiocese of Vancouver extends our heartfelt sympathy to all survivors of abuse. While we are unable to comment on the specifics of this case as it is now before the courts, we hope that the increased attention will encourage other survivors to come forward and seek the healing and support they deserve.”
“The Catholic community in Vancouver remains committed to a safe and caring environment and has implemented extensive measures and policies to prevent all forms of abuse.”
None of the allegations in the notice of claim have been proven in court and a response has not been filed.
V.C.A.B., who now lives in Calgary, is a defined member of a class-action lawsuit against Vancouver College certified in B.C. Supreme Court in 2023, but chose to opt out.