Sphenia Jones was not alone when she stood up in Sarah’s Longhouse this spring to talk about what she survived at residential school.
Jones is seeking a class-action lawsuit against a priest, his religious order, and his archdiocese after the priest allegedly defamed residential school survivors like her during some public remarks he made after a 2021 mass in Edmonton.
Jones’ lawsuit still needs to be certified as a class-action, but in April it passed a legal hurdle when a judge in Calgary struck down a motion by the defence to dismiss it on procedural grounds.
The defence lawyers had argued that the group whose reputation Sphenia Jones wants to protect — residential school survivors who have spoken out — was too vaguely defined.
But the judge disagreed, and now the lawsuit will go to a certification hearing.
After returning from Calgary to Haida Gwaii, Sphenia Jones and her supporters organized a dinner at Sarah’s Longhouse in Old Massett on May 17 to connect with one another and share stories.
One by one, without notes, five other Haida elders who survived residential schools took the floor.
One man spoke about how he was refused the chance to write the provincial math exam and get his Grade 11, although he loved math and was good at it.
One woman said she and others were often told they weren’t smart enough to be in school, but she scored 90 to 100 on tests.
“I loved school, I loved reading,” she said. “And to this day, I still like to learn.”
Another man spoke about how as a young boy at residential school, he was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused. Even now he struggles to feel at ease when talking with other men.
“They took away my childhood,” he said.
It took decades, he said, but he finally quit the drinking that started then.
More than one survivor mentioned the horrible food at residential school: baloney every day, or sour milk.
More than one survivor said how painful it was, first to be uprooted from family and friends on Haida Gwaii, and then again to find they were not so welcome back home.
“When I came home, there was nobody here for me,” one woman said.
“They said I was different — I didn’t know what they meant by that.”
It took a long time for her to speak up for herself and to ignore rumours, she said, or even to quit spreading rumours herself.
“That’s not our Haida way,” she said. “We were taught to be respectful, and kind.”
In an interview before she took the floor, Sphenia Jones said she first heard about the remarks that Fr. Marcin Mironiuk made about residential-school survivors on a CBC news report.
Mironiuk spoke in Polish after a mass, and the remarks were broadcast on YouTube. According to the translation in the CBC report, Mironiuk described the 2021 discovery of grave sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School as “lies” and “manipulation.” He told the congregation he had visited the Kamloops site without disclosing that he was a priest and asked to see “mass graves.”
Mironiuk was speaking in Edmonton, which is where Jones was taken to residential school during the late 1950s, when she was 11 to 15 years old.
Jones said Mironiuk isn’t the only one — she has lately heard of several Canadians casting doubt on what survivors like her have said about residential school, and she wants people to know the truth.
People were raped, she said, and she does not believe, as Mironiuk also said in his 2021 remarks, that all the students buried near the former schools died of natural causes.
Jones told the court in Calgary that she had a classmate, Vicki Stewart, who she said died after being hit in the head with something made of wood by one of the nuns.
Jones said she had to prepare her classmate’s body by wrapping it in a blanket.
Following his 2021 remarks, Mironiuk was put on indefinite administrative leave by the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton. He also apologized, and asked residential school survivors to forgive him.
“I am deeply sorry, humiliated, and ashamed at the reality that stands behind the Residential Schools System and did not intend to undermine that in any way,” Mironiuk said in a statement.
“As a Catholic and as a Priest, I see the terrible hurt the Residential School System has caused and I lament the loss of all lives as a result. If and when I get a chance to meet survivors, I will seek to learn from their stories and come to know their history better.”
Mironiuk’s superior ordered that he take lessons with a First Nations history expert on residential schools, and that he celebrate a monthly memorial mass for the next year for children who died while in residential school.
Asked about Rev. Mironiuk’s apology, the mandatory history lessons, and being put on leave, Jones said it wasn’t enough to stop her launching the lawsuit.
The church also tried to reach a settlement with her to prevent the lawsuit from going to court, but she said no.
“It would be just like me agreeing that nothing happened to us,” she said.
When she was 13 and in her second year at residential school in Edmonton, Jones said the supervisors there pulled out three of her fingernails to punish her.
“When they were pulling my fingernails, I said, ‘I’m going to tell on you,’ and they said, ‘Nobody’s going to believe you.’”
Jones said that one of the hardest things for residential school survivors to do is to speak out. She didn’t tell her own children about her experience when they were growing up.
Now, Jones hopes that by seeking the class-action on their behalf, others won’t be afraid to speak out against anyone trying to diminish what happened.
The Indian School Residential School Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day to support survivors and anyone affected at 1-866-925-4419. Mental-health counselling is also available through Hope for Wellness at 1-855-242-3310, or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.