Uncover - S16: “Kuper Island” E7: Hurt People Hurt People

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

The children who attended Kuper Island Residential School faced a terrible aftermath trying to process what happened. The abuse they suffered there often coloured their relationships with family and community — with devastating results. Meanwhile, the team learns one of the perpetrators from the school spent his later years being taken care of in relative comfort — all paid for by the Oblates. They demand to know why. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551

Bankman Freed's entire house of cards started to crumble as crypto asset prices plummeted in May. This morning, we unsealed an eight-count indictment charging Samuel Bankman Freed. I'm Jacob Silverman, host of the new podcast, The Naked Emperor. I'm going to explain how Sam Bankman Freed built and destroyed a multi-billion dollar crypto empire. Available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Before we start, this is a podcast about Canada's Indian residential schools and it contains descriptions of sexual violence, suicide and abuse. If you need support, you can find information about where to turn for help at cbc.ca slash keeperisland. When James Charlie was a young man, he didn't tell anyone about the abuse he'd suffered at residential school.

He had two ways of numbing his deep pain. Boozing and fighting. That was my way of coping with all the hurt and the anger I had in me. That was from being a man, not being a man, not being a father, not being a husband, not being a brother. Those were my crutch, eh? Now it's getting to have more mellow genes.

It's a nice place to be. I still have a lot of my temper. My tongue isn't as sharp as it used to be, but it's still sharp. What I went through, the hardest part was my healing journeys. The harm I inflicted on my wife, the harm I inflicted on my boys, the harm I inflicted on my grandchildren. There was two sides to my dad. There was an angry side and a happy side. And my brothers and I and my mom, we were all walking on eggshells because we never wanted to upset him and see that angry side.

That's Fergie Charlie, James' youngest son. He's in his 40s and he's a keeper of Hul'q'uminum songs and traditions and language. He gives off a quiet vibe of cultural strength. But when I ask about his dad, he gets emotional. There was so much drinking involved. I thought it was normal. I saw him drunk every night. And he's either happy or he's mad, right?

And he took it out on me and my brothers and my mom. And so growing up, I seen all this violence. We got the leather belt every night. If one side gun dribble, all three of us got smacked. If my dad got mad, mom would get beat up. A lot of things he got at residential school, my brothers and I also got. We grew up watching the Brady Bunch, Leave it a Beaver, seeing all these white families

in a nice house, a white picket fence, having a meal together, and hearing their dad saying they love their kids. We never heard that growing up. We never did. And growing up as kids

And growing up as kids, you're supposed to be happy. Fergie didn't go to residential school. But that didn't protect him from the horrors inflicted on his parents and grandparents. In this episode, we're going to really get into the intergenerational aftershocks of Cooper Island, and we'll put tough questions to the organization that sheltered one of the school's worst predators. I'm Duncan McHugh, and this is Cooper Island. Episode 7. Hurt people hurt people. When I first met James, he struck me as a man's man. The more I've gotten to know him, the more I've seen his tender side.

When I drop by, he's often outside, tending to his garden. That's a cherry tree there. Okay. That's a plum tree, pear tree. This is a peach tree and a cherry tree. I have three different types of cherries here. Strawberries here. I've got a couple more rows.

Another row of raspberries here. And blueberries. I have flowers starting to bloom. The rhodos, azaleas, and different plants all bloom all summer long. The ground here has lots of clay, so it's taken him 20 years or so to nurture this tiny oasis. You brought in the topsoil? Yeah, I have to.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. That's a lot of work. It is. Wow. Yeah, so it's a labor of love. Why do you like spending so much time in the garden? It's peaceful, very peaceful. This yarn is a tribute to my late mother and my wife.

It's dedicated to the woman I love, my wife of 50 years, my late mother. James was open with me about the harms he'd inflicted upon his family in his younger years, but I wanted to hear his wife Lexi's view. She attended residential school too, near Vancouver. It's where she and James met over 50 years ago. What do you love about him? Let's see. He has so many problems where I begin.

Sitting side by side, James and Lexi read each other's body language. They've been doing it so long, they don't need words to communicate. I can see their affection for each other, their deep love for their three sons. But their long union has endured a lot of pain. Alcohol was a major issue. Abusive with words. Yeah, because he grew up in the residential school with no parents and no guidance or no grandparents. He didn't know how really to talk to people and to solve problems. So he was very short-tempered and therefore very aggressive

and angry all the time. I mean, he took it out on you as well. Mm-hmm. What was one of the worst times? So many, I guess. Yeah. It wasn't the physical abuse you could do with that. It was more the mental.

In the beginning of our relationship, there's a pattern that abusers go through. So his was, you don't need your family, stay away, you can't go there. I said, I'm going there, that's my mom, that's my dad, I'm going. So it was more the mental abuse. So it was more the mental abuse. So many of our residential school survivors go through that, where they have to have control over their other half, their spouse.

That must have been hard for you. Yeah. When my mom left my dad, who was also an abuser and an alcoholic and a womanizer, my grandparents would always send her back saying, you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it. So that was the way it was for me growing up to have that teaching from my parents saying that this is what you have, from my mother saying this is what you have to do. You got to stay. Yeah.

It's a hard teaching to have to stay by your husband no matter what. I'm just darn lucky that all of the three boys are drug and alcohol free. But when he'd come home and he'd be angry, I would just pack them up right away and take them out because I didn't want them to witness that. So he'd say, why do you always just take them, take the boys away? Why do you leave? And I went, because you were mad. That must have been scary. That must have been scary for you. Yeah. Yeah, so... It's, um... Yeah, but I wouldn't do that today.

I would say out. Leave. It would be decades before James would finally reveal to Lexi that he'd been sexually abused at Cooper Island. He'd never talked about residential school at all. What was that like for you when he finally do you remember when he told you? I was in shock.

Did it explain his behavior at all? No. No, we didn't tie the two together at all. I didn't. Did you? Oh yeah. Yeah.

He always told me that he didn't. Did you? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Mm-hmm. He always told me that he didn't want kids. I don't want kids. I know I wouldn't be a good father. I said, oh, yeah, you will. So I just never knew the story behind it, though, why he didn't want kids. Which was? That because of the

residential school he wouldn't be a good father. He would have all those same expectations from the boys. How were you as a father? Oh, as a father? Oh, I was the best father around. A scale of one to ten put me at a four. Yeah. You can put me at a seven or eight now. It was one thing to ask James about his parenting, quite another to ask one of his sons. Fergie teaches Hul'q'uminim language at the Tsiménais Community School,

where he's often surrounded by a circle of small children reading language flashcards. Good job. I'll see you guys on Tuesday, OK? Neat tight. Aight? Hi,. Hi,. He credits his strong cultural upbringing

to his maternal grandparents, who he spent a lot of time with, because growing up, things at home were often rough. At soccer practice, I lost one shin guard. My dad threw me across the room. Then he beat me up until I found that shin guard. This is for losing shin guard. Do you think it would help me find it? I played outside. It was a day like this. I was in the mud. I came inside dirty. I got spanked with a leather belt. My dad threw me in the shower. And he goes, you don't move until I come back. And so he left me in there for an hour. All the hot water was gone.

He came back and he forgot about me an hour later. He said, I was just like this, shivering. How old were you, Fergie? I was six. He said my whole body was blue. That's the first time my dad picked me up, wrapped me in a towel, and he said he was sorry. And he warmed me up. I was never mad at him. I was only six years old.

But these things. Are something that I grew up with. He took it out on your mom as well. So much black eyes and bleeding noses and fat lips. Grew up in my whole life and seen my mom cry. Yeah, we're chased through the woods, chasing us on cars, right? And my mom has gone through hell and back. No person ever deserves that.

Nobody. It's one of the hardest truths about residential schools. The violence children suffered there are often carried into their adult lives. The challenge for intergenerational survivors, the children and grandchildren of survivors, is putting an end to the vicious circle of abuse. I made a promise to never ever touch my kids. I've never spanked them in my life. I've never hit them in my life. I've never hit them in my life. I've never

hit any of my partners. It's breaking that cycle. Growing up, my dad, the priests would come to his room, pick him up, take him to their room, and they physically and mentally abuse him. And so when my dad got home, when he moved to Penelope, when I was seven, he'd come home drunk. Then he'd come into my room and pick me up, pack me up, take me into his room, and he would tell me all these things that happened to him at residential school. He would tell you about them?

He would tell me. When you were little? Yeah, when I was seven years old. And he never told my older brothers, but he told me of the abuse that he got. And so at a young age, I knew what he went through. I don't think he remembers because he talked to me until he passed out. Then I go back to the room. Wow, that must have been crazy as a kid.

Well, what was it like hearing those stories? It's like a Stephen King book. And like my dad said, it's like a bad dream that will never go away the things that my dad and uncles endured there's a lot of anger inside them and they've apologized do you remember that first when he first came to you without apology what was that like that day uh well he's drunk is drunk he goes son i'm sorry for what i did to you and your brothers and your mom growing up but he goes i knew no other way and this is what i was taught to be aggressive violent

and i had no parenting skills. And it took a lot for my dad to say that to me when he was sober. I said, I'm sorry. And now he even says, I love you, right? He says that every time I call him or I see him. right he says that every time i call him or i see him and i always told him was like dad we know what you've been through we have a childhood that we cannot erase but you have a second chance with your grandkids and that's what he's doing james's apologies to his sons happened around the same time

that James was initiated into the Longhouse, the spiritual heart of Hul'q'um'inim culture. He introduced his sons to the Longhouse, and also began taking his sons and grandchildren on tribal canoe journeys up and down the B.C. coast. I grew up with my grandparents. They raised me here on Penelaket. James and Lexi also took in their granddaughter, Caitlin.

It was another go-round at parenting. Caitlin is now finishing law school, a path she's chosen in part because of what her grandparents endured. Growing up with my grandparents and my dad, I was like, how can someone just take children and like abuse them and then yeah we have all of these impacts like how isn't that illegal i just wanted to go to school to learn more about the law and hopefully make an impact so that something like that doesn't happen again

and also like hold the people accountable that hurt first nations people and that continue to hurt them so yeah i guess it's just like a little bit of like me being spiteful towards like the government and the churches and the people who write legislation still. You say being spiteful, but you say you want to hold them accountable for what? Just the way that they hurt people like my grandparents and my dad. I'll ask you both, what do you love about each other? Well, we took a long time to figure it out, a long time to talk. She's just as stubborn as me in a lot of ways.

We were very compatible in a lot of ways now we're so strong together we can feed off one another in very little words mind you I tell you old habits are hard to die I like his memory I mean

I said man if he knew the language, he would be a speaker. He remembers names, places, people. He has a keen sense of observation. He's tough on the outside. He really cares. So whenever we have a funeral or anything in and around the community, we're always there to support people. He is really caring to a lot of families and that's um it's a lot of work so that's kind of what i like about him that's enough for now that's a pretty good list james and lexi's family is finding ways to rebuild from the damage the oblates did.

But other families still struggle to find ways to heal. And hurt people hurt people. The ripple effects of residential schools really hits me one day as we wait for the ferry at Penelaket. On one hand, it's idyllic. Two proud grandparents watch their grandsons throw rocks as far as they can into the sea. But I still go the farthest, since I'm higher. You're lower. You cut that the farthest, bro.

I'm gonna show you the farthest, bro. I'm going to show you the farthest. But right next to where those kids are playing, a bright red dress hangs from a tree. It's a stark symbol and reminder of the epidemic of violence plaguing Indigenous women and girls. Indigenous women are four times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of homicide in Canada. Almost two-thirds of Indigenous women have been sexually or physically assaulted in their lifetime. A small community like Penelakut, as close-knit as it may be, isn't immune to the violence. And I met an intergenerational survivor

who lives close by that red dress flapping in the breeze, who spent a lot of years connecting all the dots. That's Rocky James. His dad attended the Cooper Island School. Rocky left the community to pursue higher education, where he thought a lot about how Catholic culture changed the Hul'q'u'minim way of life, the patriarchy, the homophobia, the prevalence of sexual violence against children.

I can't help but notice that there's a red dress hanging at the ferry terminal. I can't help but notice that there's a case here in the community. Does that tie into this conversation in any way? Yes, it does. There's been two big cases on the island where women have been murdered. One, they don't know who murdered her. women have been murdered.

One, they don't know who murdered her. The second one was my cousin, who was murdered by her husband in the presence of one of her children. Yeah, this has everything to do with the injustice that Indigenous people still struggle with in Canada. Rocky did his master's thesis on lateral violence. That's the way Indigenous people sometimes lash out at each other. He connects it back to the methods of the nuns and brothers at the residential schools.

What came out of that was this concept called fear-based learning. And it was kind of the entire way that the Indian residential school as a learning institution functioned was on this concept of fear and intimidation. A priest or a nun as an instructor would use fear to manipulate children individually, but they also taught children how to use fear and manipulation with other school children. So there were these actions of bullying between students, and sometimes a priest or a nun or a group of priests or nuns would teach children how to be abusive towards each other.

And so Rocky finally started to have an explanation for why there was so much lateral violence in his community. As people who struggle with trauma, when people are struggling with what they're feeling with, most often they will lash out at the people that they love. And so that's gonna be your spouse, that's gonna be your children, if you're in an office it's gonna be an employee. And so what does it have to do with Indian residential school? It goes back to that fear-based learning. And so what I've realized moving home is that silence played such a key role in how people were abused. If you tell anybody, I'm going to hurt you. If you tell anybody, I'm going to kill you. All of these things, silence is still the most persistent aspect of the intergenerational trauma. And so I've had survivors from my community tell me this past summer, I can't talk about it.

That's how I've survived. I've moved on from that. I'm not going to be attending your healing session because what I like to focus on now is my grandchildren or my children. Which sounds like a legitimate thing. I want to focus on my grandchildren. What's the problem with that? If a person refuses to ask for help, sometimes the risk is that they will become suicidal or the risk is that they will become suicidal, or the risk is that they will become violent towards their family members, or the risk is that after being abstinent from abusing substances for so long, they're going to pick it up again. Or that they'll continue behavior that they may not even be aware that they're perpetuating. Yeah, if you're dissociated and you're oppressing feelings,

you're not entirely in your body. You're not entirely in your relationships. What I think we're not talking about is psychopathy and sociopathy. These were institutionalized in Indian residential schools. One of the old TRC reports refers to it as institutionalized pedophilia. People still need to hear that story. Because? Psychopaths and sociopaths raise children in a confined space. And that has everything to do with why children are missing and murdered. Why children didn't go home. Because they were raised by psychopaths who wanted to sexually abuse children

and murder them if they felt like they had to. So why aren't we talking about it then? Because we've been so busy just trying to survive. All of our resources are directed towards trauma. Do we go after the few remaining old white guys? That was the most shocking thing about my work as a resolution health support worker that these priests and nuns weren't being charged. Does that piss you off? Yes. Why? Because it's still institutionalized racism, sexism. It perpetuates the genocide of Indigenous people when non-Indigenous people are not held accountable for crimes against Indigenous people.

It's something I've heard over and over during my visits to Penelakut. A desire for accountability. James and Tony and other survivors told us they still live with the abuse they suffered. So we had tracked down Glenn Dowdy, the only oblate at Cooper Island to face criminal charges. The oblates of Mary Immaculate had been sheltering him for years. It was time to hear from them about paying the price for running Cooper Island and nearly 50 other residential schools in Canada.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello there. Ken. I'm Ken. How are you? I'm doing fine. Thank you so much for taking time. Father Kent Thorson became head of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 2019. They're a dwindling religious order, with roughly 300 members remaining in Canada. So our conversation starts with Oblate retirement residences.

There are four of them. Two in BC, one in Alberta, plus Springhurst, the one in Ottawa where Glenn Dowdy lived. We are an aging community of priests and brothers, and so caring for our elders is a significant part of what we do as administrators. Nineteen men currently live at Springhurst, largely subsidized by the Oblates. We ensure the men are well fed, well cared for. There's a little bit of nursing that's offered, but very little. They retain a keen interest in the goings-on of the Oblates, of the church, and what's happening in the world as well. And so there's a good library downstairs.

There's TV, of course. Some men continue to assist in a much reduced way in some of the ministry of the congregations. What I want to understand is why at least nine convicted sexual offenders have taken shelter there, with two of them living there now. What kind of rules are there for their entry into one of these residences? If they have an offending history,

either convicted of that or a credible allegation of an offending history, we receive them into community. We don't dismiss them from the community. This is in our safeguarding policy, which is available on our website. We will set up a monitoring program so that we can ensure as best as possible that they don't have ministry, don't have access to vulnerable persons. But as I say, we keep them within the community for the safety of the larger community because

of course recidivism is a real concern with people who have offended against minors and this is a way to mitigate the possibility of re-offending and it's true that the needs are cared for and none of our places are ostentatious or luxurious, but they're comfortable. And so I can appreciate where people would be concerned that these men are living a life of comfort and they're cared for while victims would still carry the pain of their abuse. So you acknowledge that, I mean, there are victims that are saying that the Oblates are offering safe harbor for convicted sexual abusers?

Yes, I understand that. And I think, Duncan, we've done a poor job in explaining the rationale behind retaining these members in our community. Because the primary reason is out of a concern for reducing the chance that they might re-offend. You acknowledge the challenge of recidivism, though, when it comes to sexual abuse with minors, and so what kind of programs are you running for the Oblates and the Brothers who are in your care, in terms of monitoring and ensuring the safety of the community? Each of them would have what we call a safety plan. And the safety plan requires that they check in with a monitor on a regular basis to see that they're doing the things that they need to do

or to see if there's any behaviors or changes in routine or behavior that might raise a red flag of concern. We have an advisory committee within the Oblate province, within our Oblate group that meets regularly, to oversee the monitoring and to make changes when necessary to a safety plan. Are there any members that are not members of the Church who are externally overseeing the safety plans? No. No. We see the problem inherent in policing ourselves, so to speak.

And we are, as soon as possible, we will be moving to a process where largely the oversight would be taken out of our hands, and it would go to another group. You see the problem. I see the problem, yes. So why hasn't it happened? We're learning as we go. I recognize that for many victims and for many people, especially in the Indigenous community where a number of allegations or convictions of abuse of students have taken place, that that's not good enough.

And that's one of the reasons that we're looking at the change. Do you have a timeline? My goal would be the next six months. So if we haven't been able to manage this shift within that time, then a shift to a process that is acceptable to victims, to their families, to survivors, then, you know, I've come back on your program and explain why. Then I ask about Glenn Dowdy, the only oblate to ever have been convicted of sexual abuse at Cooper Island.

Glenn Dowdy, do you know him? Yes. Shortly after being charged in Thunder Bay. Yes. He ended up at Springhurst. Yes. Is he still at Springhurst? No.

Why not? Glenn made the choice to leave the oblates. Against my strong urging, against the strong urging of the community, Glenn made the choice to leave the Oblates. We worked to encourage him to stay. Well over a year we had this conversation with him and 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. Why did you want him to stay? Because he has an offending history. And because I feel it's our responsibility to ensure as best we can that our members who have offended have adequate supports. And the main support, of course, is a supportive community. adequate supports. And the main support, of course, is a supportive community. How concerned are you that an oblate brother that offended in every institution that he was in is now no longer in your care and is in the broader community?

It's for this reason, Duncan, that we strongly urged Glenn, as strongly as we could, not to leave. strongly as we could not to leave. So I do have that concern but Glenn has left the order and so he's no longer under our care or under our direction. Are you worried about recidivism? I'm worried about recidivism with any offender. We checked with the Correctional Service of Canada, the Parole Board and the RCMP. None are monitoring Glenn Dowdy. The broader question, Ken, is what I would observe as a pattern of the Oblate brothers moving known abusers from school to school.

Would you agree that's a pattern? known abusers, from school to school. Would you agree that's a pattern? I would, again, I can't say that it's a pattern because I don't know. Certainly, if it is, I would want to know who made those decisions. I would want to express my deep sorrow and my apologies to victims. And I've not met any of Glenn's victims. What makes it harder to confirm whether administrators knew of the abuse is the difficulty in accessing records for the residential schools run by the Oblates,

specifically the Codex Historicus, the daily journals written by priests about operations of the schools, and personnel files. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, or NCTR, the daily journals written by priests about operations of the schools, and personnel files. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, or NCTR, has been hounding the Oblates to disclose their records ever since the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015. Six years later, after the revelations of unmarked graves at residential schools across Canada, the Oblates pledged to turn them over.

mark graves at residential schools across Canada, the Oblates pledged to turn them over. But a journalist like me still can't get them to find out what they knew of Glendoughty's abuse. Why did it take the, quote, discovery of graves for the Oblates to say, we will release the... The codices? Yes. Yeah. I can honestly say that I don't know. That's a question that puzzles me. And so I don't know what the reticence was. I suppose there was a defensiveness

that characterized the relationship too often with the religious communities or with the church. You describe it as a reticence. The Catholic Church and the Oblates have been actively fighting survivors with regard to the release of records. Yeah. Perhaps reticence isn't the best word. What I'm trying to express, though, is the defensive posture

that I think the Church took on. I certainly see that, and that's certainly the perception of many Indigenous people and people in the Church that I've talked to. I mean, my own family. What do they say to you? They say the same thing. They say, why haven't you provided the documents yet? And what do you do when your own family says that to you? I think long and hard about that. And I think what has happened is that our eyes have been opened by the pain and the anger that has emerged.

At Cooper Island, there were 160-plus. They don't know. They don't know how many children died because they don't have full access to the records right now. But there were 160- plus children that died. Trying to piece that together is no end of difficulty for the community. They haven't had the resources to have archivists. They don't have access to the records from the oblates. They don't know what happened to their children. Right. And I say I understand. I can't begin to understand what that

must be like. I'm a Roman Catholic priest. I don't have children. I don't have an understanding of essentially not having access to your history because somebody has said, we have control of it and we're not going to give it to you. And I understand that that is, it's been far too long in coming. Far too long in coming. But I just want to emphasize to you that when I say a pattern, there's a secondary pattern. And that has been that the oblates have resisted multiple times over decades attempts to get access to the history and records of the church. Yes. The RCMP in the 1990s spent several years investigating sexual abusers. We got access to their report and they talk about how frustrating it was for police officers

with the power of search warrants to get access to the records to try to do a full and complete investigation. They couldn't do it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who the leaders were at that time. I was coming into the community about that time. I want to do things differently, and that's what I can commit to today, to do things

differently. When you look back on it, though, do you see that pattern that I'm, am I making things up? No, the pattern. I mean, Duncan, we see the pattern. I mean, we've all, I don't know if you've seen the movie Spotlight. Yes. If you haven't seen it, the movie Spotlight is based on a true story about reporters uncovering a massive child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. So clearly the pattern existed, was present in the larger church, is present in the larger church. The church leaders acknowledge that today, that that pattern is there,

and have acknowledged it for many years now. Of obfuscating the truth? Yeah, I mean, that's what we see in the movie Spotlight, right? And then there's paying for past abuse. The question of whether Catholic entities in Canada paid in full, compensation totaling $79 million that they promised to survivors back in 2006. The Oblates contributed to that settlement, Ken tells me. He won't say how much. The concern, Ken, is this. Why won't the church help the people it victimized? I would, you said earlier, you invite me to push back,

and so I'll push back and say that I recognize the harm that our presence has brought to Indigenous communities. But I would say that we have contributed, and we are contributing, and we will continue to contribute to reconciliation efforts, to healing efforts. It's heartening to hear that. But again, when I look at the patterns... I understand the skepticism.

The patterns of... I understand your skepticism, and I understand the skepticism. The Roman Catholic Church continues to keep fighting the very people who it harmed. I would say that we have recognized that that is not what we're called to in this, that there was a defensive posture that the church took at the beginning of the process. And speaking for my community, we're in a different place now. I wish we'd have gotten there earlier, but we're there now. So, here's where we are.

Brother Glenn Dowdy was the only man to be convicted of crimes at Cooper Island. He now walks free. Survivors have to live with the abuse, and in the end be accountable to their families for all those continuing harms, like James was. And the Oblates? Well, they promised to do better. So I ask Father Thorson one last question, because we still have truth to uncover.

Whether he knows anything about Brother Brian Dufour, the lay Oblate who abused James and Tony Charlie on the expo trip to Montreal. The same Oblate who was at Cuper Island, the day that Richard Thomas died. The same Oblate who was at Cooper Island the day that Richard Thomas died. We were talking about just generally the staff at Cooper Island. Brian Dufour, is that a name that comes... It's not a name I'm familiar with. It doesn't ring any bells for you? I just wondered if you had any awareness.

I don't, but I'd certainly be willing to receive the information and look into it. I want to know what happened. As it turns out, we've learned a lot more about Brother Dufour. Information that finally starts to answer our big question about why Richard ended up dead, hanging in the school's gym. On the final episode of Cooper Island, we track down classmates of Richard Thomas, who last saw him alive. That wasn't the first time I saw him strap Richard.

He didn't hold back when he strapped Richard. Why was he strapping Richard so much? We don't know, but I think Richard just got tired of it. The way Brother treated him, Brother do for. Cuper Island is produced by Martha Troian and Jodi Martinson, and hosted

by me, Duncan McHugh. Our senior producer is Jeff Turner. Our coordinating producer is Roshni Nair. Our story editor is Chris Oak. Our mixer is Evan Kelly. And Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts. Theme music by Zibiwan. Art by Elliot Whitehill.

Haijka, Jimmy Gwich, to James, Lex Lexi, Fergie and Caitlin Charlie, Rocky James and Father Ken Thorson. If you need support, you can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line, 1-866-925-4419. Or for more resources on Canada's Indian residential schools, go to our website, cbc.ca slash cuperisland. Thanks to everyone for your ratings and reviews. It helps people find our podcast, and we've been passing on your messages of support to survivors. Miigwech bizindayik.

Thanks for listening.