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-

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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. ©

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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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