The Catholic church in Canada has come under growing pressure to compensate victims of the country’s residential school system after the scale of its assets were revealed in a string of media investigations.
As part of a 2007 agreement, the church agreed to pay C$29m in compensation to survivors, but only distributed a fraction of that figure, citing poor fundraising efforts.
Now, reports by CBC News and Globe and Mail have suggested that the church not only controls more than C$4bn in assets, but also pulls in hundreds of millions in charitable donations and constructed gilded cathedrals while claiming it lacks the funds to make good on its promises to pay compensation.
CBC and the Globe have been going hard at the RC Church, now the Guardian chimes in.
