WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
When James and Tony Charlie first arrived at Kuper Island Residential School in British Columbia, they were given identification numbers that would be stitched into their clothes and put on lists for chore duties.
“Sometimes it wasn’t even our names, it was just the number,” Tony said.
The brothers, born just 14 months apart, started attending school in 1964 when Tony was 13 and James was 12. They’re now counted among the many children abused by Catholic clergy at 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,” said Tony.
Kuper Island was run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order that operated 48 of Canada’s residential schools.
Some referred to the isolated island – situated between Vancouver Island and the mainland west coast – as Canada’s Alcatraz.
-
Listen to CBC’s new podcast on Kuper Islandwhich includes documents and testimonies from survivors and witnesses detailing years of abuse against students.
James and Tony can be counted among the many children abused by Catholic clergy at residential schools across Canada. They attended Kuper Island Residential School off the coast of British Columbia. (Submitted)
9 sex offenders taking refuge in Ottawa
The notorious school, its white cross and bell tower were bulldozed in the early 1980s. Gone, too, is the name Kuper – reclaimed as Penelakut in 2010 – a local First Nation to which the land belongs.
The journey for reconciliation is hardly over. In an effort to track down Glenn Doughty, the Oblate brother who abused young boys on Kuper Island, CBC News uncovered a retirement home in Ottawa where Catholic clergymen convicted of sex crimes are offered a place to live after their release from prison.
CBC has confirmed at least nine convicted sex offenders – men who abused children in residential schools, northern Indigenous communities, and various parishes across the country – have taken refuge at the Springhurst residence, which is owned by the Oblates.
Shelter was also provided there to those awaiting trial, and in the past has included accused Catholic priests from outside the order.
No matter the situation, or the crimes committed, residents at Springhurst have their needs attended to for the rest of their lives. The head of the Oblates says it’s part of their post-incarceration care and surveillance.
Former Oblate brother, Glenn Doughty, was convicted of sex crimes against children at two former residential schools in British Columbia and up until recently lived in an Oblate residence in Ottawa. (Glenn Doughty / Facebook)
Coming to terms with abuse
Critics say survivors, including those reduced to being identified as a number in their childhoods, have no such support or security following the crimes committed against them.
The Charlie brothers were forced to live on separate floors at the residential school, but now, decades later, they share horrific memories from the abuse they suffered.
Tony, who walks with a cane, still remembers his introduction to Brother Doughty. Within days of Doughty’s arrival at Kuper Island, he took the boy into his room and invited him into his bed.
Sometimes he’d get drunk and we all knew every night he was going to be a sexual predator.- James Charlie
“It was just very shocking to have that happen, because I was just meeting him,” he said.
Doughty would go on to seek out other boys.
“Sometimes he’d get drunk and we all knew every night he was going to be a sexual predator,” said James Charlie, who still lives on the island.
“The next morning, the poor guy could hardly walk. But nobody said nothing because it could be their turn tonight.”
In 2002, Doughty was sentenced to three years in prison for his historic crimes at the Kuper Island school, including indecent assault on a male, gross indecency, and one count of buggery involving 11 different victims. Those were the laws on the books when the crimes occurred in the 1960s and ’70s.
James calls Doughty’s prison time for crimes at 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 reporter Duncan McCue. (Duncan McCue / CBC)
Series of convictions
Initially convicted in Thunder Bay in the late 1980s, Doughty was later 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.
She was in the courtroom when the judge spoke sternly to Doughty and the Oblates in 2002.
“He told the Oblate priest, ‘If you want to take care of him, there must be someone in his presence at all times. You must take the door off of his sleeping room. He can’t even go to the bathroom alone,'” Pflanz recalled.
Doughty apologized and expressed remorse. He became a responsibility the Oblates say they took seriously.
Ken Thorson, head of the Oblate order, said Doughty had “been living at Springhurst” since he was released from prison.
Springhurst residence is located in central Ottawa in the middle of a residential neighborhood and just 200 meters from a city park. Over the years it has housed several clergy members 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 living with free room and meals, Doughty left Springhurst and the order altogether.
He’s still active on social media, including Facebook and Instagram. When CBC reached 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 at Kuper Island, saying, “I’ve had too much grief over it. I’ve had so much suffering, so much pain. I want to die in peace.”
In a subsequent conversation, Doughty said his lawyer and psychologist advised him not to talk further with CBC.
While it appears Doughty is still living in the nation’s capital, he’s no longer actively monitored by the Oblates or other authorities.
“Glenn made the choice to leave the Oblates against my strong urging,” Thorson said. “He was adamant that he needed to leave. By Canadian law, I can’t compel an adult to stay somewhere where he doesn’t want to stay.”
Home is ‘helpful to the common good,’ leader says
Thorson says he wanted Doughty to remain in order because he feels it’s the Oblates’ responsibility to provide “adequate support.”
“I truly believe that we’re doing something that’s helpful to the common good by caring for the needs of our members who have that offending history,” Thorson said.
Doughty, now 84, has no record of crimes since leaving prison about 20 years ago, but Thorson notes there are still concerns.
“I’m worried about recidivism with any offender,” he said.
Leona Huggins, pictured here in 2019, was sexually assaulted by a priest as a young girl in British Columbia. She’s now an advocate for others who’ve been abused by Catholic Church clergy in Canada. (Doug Husby / CBC)
Survivors network of those abused by priests
Over the years, Doughty would have crossed paths with another convicted sex offender at Springhurst. Father John McCann also lived at the residence between trials and after his incarceration.
Like Doughty, McCann served the Oblates across the country.
When Leona Huggins was just 12, she answered phones and brought tea to the priests’ rooms while working at her Oblate parish in New Westminster, BC, about 50 years ago.
McCann gave her special attention – grooming her, then regularly sexually assaulting her in the 1970s.
“He started singling me out,” Huggins said of McCann. “Over a long period of time he abused me.”
In 1990, when Huggins was 29, she discovered McCann still had access to children and she reported him to police. Court documents show the Oblates quickly moved McCann to one of their residences.
I knew that if he started a youth group he was going to abuse other people- Leona Huggins
McCann was eventually convicted of six counts of sexual abuse of girls under 16, and served 10 months in jail.
For many years after his release, he lived at Springhurst.
Then in 2011, Huggins blew the whistle again after finding out he was still ministering to an Ottawa congregation with children. At the time, the archdiocese said it was unaware of McCann’s record.
“I knew his method of operation. I knew that if he started a youth group he was going to abuse other people,” said Huggins, now an advocate for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
McCann was removed from the ministry, but Huggins says she was condemned by the church for “ruining a man’s life.”
“It’s hard to see these men being so well taken care of when the survivors haven’t been,” said Huggins. “I wasn’t just ignored, I was ostracized for something that I should have been ultimately thanked for.”
McCann never faced any further charges. He was 89 when he died in 2018 at an Ottawa hospice, having spent many years at Springhurst.
“For every victim that has the courage to come forward, there are probably five that didn’t. And I can tell you in McCann’s case, I know four,” Huggins said.
‘It’s hard to see these men being so well taken care of’
Leona Huggins, who was sexually assaulted by a priest in the 1970s, says it’s disheartening to see members of the clergy who have been convicted of sex crimes being well cared for in Ottawa when survivors are ostracized.
Protecting and monitoring perpetrators
Springhurst residence is owned by one of several corporate holding companies formed by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which has a stated aim “to provide health care, maintenance and other benefits for the needy, aged or infirm priests and brothers who are members of Roman Catholic religious orders and …