Opinion: We need a review of education and who we trust to deliver it in Saskatchewan

Since the story was first exposed by the CBC, the number of students coming forward with similar allegations has doubled. The students said they were subjected to violent forms of physical punishment in which a wooden paddle was used to beat them, one student was allegedly the victim of a traumatic exorcism to rid him of his ‘gay demons’, another student, who was later diagnosed with dyslexia, says he was forced to spend his school days isolated from his classmates and confined to a windowless room. Members of the girls’ 2003 volleyball team were allegedly severely beaten with a wooden paddle by two male school staff members after being “yelled at” by the director, the principal and their female coach.

Lou Brunelle was the principal of the Christian Centre Academy in 1997 and was still at Legacy Christian Academy as recently as last school year. He is also one of the 21 named defendants in the class action lawsuit.

In the March 10, 1997 edition of Macleans’ magazine, Brunelle is pictured holding a wooden paddle. He is identified as the principal of the then-Christian Centre Academy and is responding to a bill put forward by former Senator Sharon Carstairs calling for an end to child physical punishment and the fact that Saskatchewan was poised to end corporal punishment in schools. He is quoted as saying that in his school (CCA) “we use (the wooden paddle) when necessary … the child is given three swats on the bum with a witness present.”

The CCA/LCA, has ties with the current provincial government, a municipal councillor and politicians. The school’s Facebook page says sitting Sask. Party MLA Hugh Nerlien is Brunelle’s brother-in-law. Students of LCA visited the Legislative Building this spring and were escorted around by Nerlien and Minister of Education Dustin Duncan.

Students of the former CCA also provided information on the coercion they faced to campaign for certain politicians during school hours. They named Maurice Vellacott, former Reform Party MP, Randy Donauer ,a current Saskatoon city councillor and active member of Mile Two Church who also ran for the federal Conservative party and former Saskatoon mayor Don Atchison. Donauer, in an email to the CBC, agreed it was inappropriate to recruit students to deliver campaign material for his campaign during school hours. Vellacott offered no such comment on the appropriateness and Atchison said he had no idea the student volunteers didn’t want to be there.

None of these allegations have been proven in court and the school said it long ago abandoned corporal punishment, but many students claim it continued after the practice was outlawed in 2004. So when it comes to the alleged abuse of children, interim protective measures are called for. The students are asking that all government subsidies for the LCA and its associated church (Mile Two Church, previously known as Saskatoon Christian Centre) be frozen immediately. The NDP is calling for a review of the LCA and supporting the students’ request that all public funding be frozen.

Despite such pleas from the former students and the public, Duncan is not closing the school, nor cutting funding, nor firing the school staff. Instead, he is keeping the LCA open and is now setting up what is in my opinion a warped and negligent plan to allow the school staff to keep their jobs by placing an oversight administrator in the three independent schools that currently employ LCA school employees who are named in the lawsuit.

I’m at a loss on how to end this piece. I’ve suggested that we need a complete review of public education, its purpose, its goals, who is to receive public funding and tax breaks and the role of religious entities in the provision of education. But the entity with the authority to do this is the Government of Saskatchewan and it’s clear they are backing up the minister of education and his plan which I see as protecting their religious and political allies.

Perhaps the government will see the light and, like Hockey Canada, we could appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to delve into how best to deliver public education in Saskatchewan.