Al4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 2, 1998

Local man faces his abuser

IN A Nanaimo court room
last week, a Terrace man
faced the person who
sexually assaulted him 50
years ago at a residential
school in Port Alberni.

““The night before I was
very confused and angry,’’
said Roger Gray, who was
assaulted by Arthur Henry.
Plint, a dormitory supervisor
at the school, “I didn’t
know how I'd react when 1
faced him.”

Plint, 80, was convicted of
sexually abusing dozens of
native boys like Gray, at the
Alberni Indian Residential
School from 1948 to 1953
and 1963 to 1968. He is

nr

Airline s

DEASE LAKE and area
residents meet Sept. 10 to
protest the planned cancell-
ing of their only scheduled
air service in and out of the
community. north on
-Hwy37. -
“The loss of the daily Cen-
tral Mountain Airlines flight
’ willbe devastating to resi-
dents; says Bunty Althaus,
president of the Dease Lake
and Tahltan Chamber of
Commerce,
“We need some kind of
: connection to the rest of the
world,” said Althaus last
week,

serving 11 years for his

crimes at Mountain Institu-

lion in the Fraser Valley.

But he was back in court
connected to a massive law-
suit filed by Gray and more
than 20 other people against
the federal government and
the United Church for
permitting the abuses to take
place.

Plint testified in civil court:

Aug. 19 that . principals,
nurses and doctors knew of

‘the abuse years before he

was fired,

But former principal John
Andrews said at a tial ear-
lier this year he knew noth-
ing about Ptint molesting

‘

young boys.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs
are trying to prove thal
many people at the school
knew ‘of the physical ‘and
sexual abuse thal. was going
on, and did nothing. to Stop

Plint’ Ss:

other plaintiffs because Plint
said that the abuse inVolved

nothing but boys maasturbat-

ing him. :

But Gray said: ihe sexual
abuse. included fondling and
other acts;:

According to Gray, the tri-
al is very slow going.

“Canada is just waiting to

“testimony was
emotional for Gray and the.

see if the Church docs
something,’® he said.

He said many plaintiffs
were having financial prob-
lems due to the case,

‘Tt’s the cost of getting us
here,’’ be said. ‘It’s the
travelling, hotels and meals

- that are expensive,”

Gray said all the plaintiffs
do their own fund-raising
because the government is
reluctant to help them.

“Tm so angry with Jane
Stewart {native affairs mini-
ster]. ‘Why does Canada
have a minister if they don’t
scem to want to help the na-
live people to get through
this?”’

ervice loss protested

“Otherwise I think Dease
Lake could become a ghost
town,”’

Hard hit will be tourism
operators, business people,
local mines and government
workers who depend on fast
and easy air connections
from Terrace, Althaus said.

Central Mountain an-
nounced last month it was
cancelling service ta Dease
Lake and pulling out of Ter-
race, Watson Lake in the
Yukon, Fort Nelson and
Fort St. John so it could
concentrate on other service
in southem B.C. and in Al-

only at the
DQ in
Terrace
meet _ at

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Some of Central
Mountain’s new routes are
those to be vacated by Air
B.C. which in tum is taking
over routes once covered by
AirCanada.

Central Mountain two
years ago expanded heavily
into the passenger service in
the south by buying new air-
craft and by hooking up
with Air B.C,, a subsidiary
of Air Canada. ©

HEE ANP

Central Mountain spokes-
man Peter Byrnes ‘said it
doesn’t make economic
sense for the company to fly
routes which don’t generate
income to meet expenses.

He said it is possible a
smaller airline might move
into Dease Lake.

That’s something Althaus
wants to pursue should
Dease Lake residents be un-
able to convince Central
Mountain to stay.

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