The record, 19 août 2008, mardi 19 août 2008

—mm XHE*» RECORD The voice of the Eastern Townships since 1897 75 CENTS + TAXES PM#0040007682 Tuesday, August 19, 2008 What?You don’t subscribe to The Record?Don’t you know that my brother draws the weather cartoons?Finally, someone who appreciates the soggy, wet environment this summer.Off roadin’ it.Get dirty or go home BY JEN YOUNG See Susan Mastine’s weekly column, on page 4 He says, SHE SAYS.I find inspiration in the surroundings in which I live.” -Trevor McKinven (Monday, August 18) Former students seek BCS apology Association proposes Truth and Reconciliation approach By Rita Legault Sherbrooke A truth and reconciliation association is being set up to try and get an apology from Bishop’s College School for students who complain they were molested by a chaplain during the fifties and sixties.Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville is facing a class-action suit filed by former students who allege they were sexually abused by the late Harold Theodore Gibson Forster, who was a teacher, chaplain, choir director and house master between 1953 and 1962 when BCS was a private boys boarding school.The BCS Truth and Reconciliation Association Inc.was founded recently by former students upset that some of their classmates suffered and continue to suffer as the result of abuse by Rev.Forster.The association includes president Angus Curry, who graduated in 1965; treasurer John Cowans, who graduated in 1954 and went on to became an English and Drama teacher and then Headmaster of BCS; and legal counsel Carleton Monk, who graduated in 1968 and is a mediation lawyer in the Townships.Cowans, who is the main spokesman for the group, told The Record that founding members of the association support the school and do not want to see it ruined through the class action suit.“But at the same time, we support those who were harmed by the presence of Mr.Forster and we want to help them too, so what we are trying to do is bring those two sides together.” “We on the association believe in BCS and its future.If we can get them together, I think some very good things can come of it.” Cowans said the first step is to get those who were harmed to register with the association.Cowans said the association was formed more than a month ago.Before it incorporated itself, it met with the Board of Directors, its lawyers and the current headmaster.“So we have made overtures to the school and tried to make them believe, as we do, that it should reach out in some meaningful way to those who were victimized.” Cowans said school officials replied that the matter is in the hands of BCS’s lawyers and that they could not say anything one way or another.“But that can change and one of the jobs we have to do is to facilitate that change,” said Cowans, who is not ready to give up the fight.SEE BCS PAGE 3 Can you do that?COREY BELLAM It’s not a pretzel, it’s a gymnast from the Gym Masters group that performed for the Cookshire Fair crowds last Sunday.Thousands attended this year's Fair under sunny skies.For more pictures from the fair see page 5.Battling Beaulieu Employees try new pressure tactics By Nikki Johnston Knowlton Employees from the carpet manufacturer, Beaulieu Canada in Acton Vale, are applying new pressure tactics to bring the company back to the negotiating table.Friday afternoon, 300 employees received a layoff notice stating the factory would close its doors in eight weeks after 91.5 per cent of its employees at factory 3 rejected the company’s final offer last week.The offer included a 20 per cent base salary, instead of the 30 per cent requested, well as a reduction in the number of vacation days and statutory holidays.The Board of Directors of the Quebec Council Unite Here met yesterday in Acton Vale at 10 a.m.until the afternoon to discuss the course of pressure tactics.At 10 a.m.this morning, employees plan to be out on the streets attempting to garner support from the population, said Gaétan Desnoyers, director of the Quebec Council in Acton Vale.“Just because they issued layoff notices doesn’t mean we can’t try to convince the company to come back to the negotiating table,” said Desnoyers.rtiote team tot y°u Y*oildPfl Benefit from our • excellent service • dynamic team effort • exclusive guarantees Donald Ricky Chauvins homes with ju-tu r of mind! 819.563.3000 SSSûSm RMPf V* MWmS&'SSSSB&Ê ! ' •• ^‘SS^wm >,, ¦¦ ¦ —as.!&taS£l "*è&.» 38*2* -4?' •¦-•¦¦ ^**^MWMMiiül'im.iü»^.-:._ page 2 TutiSDAY, August 19, 2008 JtECORD.Damned if they do, damned if they don’t It’s the clam on the Magog River at the former textile plant that controls the Memphremagog lake level.For several hours each day its gates are held wide open until volume of water downstream requires that they he closed.A huge lake-like reservoir above the Magog hydro dam quickly fills to a limit, where gates at the facility allow a flow of water that is flooding sites downsteam as far as the St.Francis River in Sherbrooke.Newport’s high lake caused by a dam at Magog.Magog “dam-keepers” are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”; that is if they open the dam holding back Lake Memphremagog stopping water from flowing freely.Presently, with so much water in the lake, high levels are causing consternation at Newport, Vermont, and problems for many cottage owners.Those who manage a primary dam on the Magog River, which controls the lake level, have no choice but to let torrents spill over.It simply cannot be held back, and impossible to control at the municipal hydro generating site further down stream.There, dam-keepers have no choice but to release great volumes which are flooding out locations along the Magog River and into Sherbrooke.From there, run-off into the St.Francis River sees communities like Richmond and Drummondville experiencing serious flooding.Reported as the worse season for high water level in thirty-three years, Newport and Magog are experiencing only a fraction of the problems being experienced by people downstream.-Submitted by Charles Catchpaugh Four-year-old Anthony Green says sun and cloud today.Weather TODAY: A MIX OF SUN AND CLOUD.40 PER CENT CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE AFTERNOON AND EARLY IN THE EVENING.WIND NORTHWEST 20 KM/H GUST-ING TO 40 BECOMING LIGHT IN THE EVENING.HIGH 17.WEDNESDAY: SUNNY.LOW 6.HIGH 20.THURSDAY: SUNNY.LOW 7.HIGH 25.FRIDAY: SUNNY.LOW 8.HIGH 27.If you wish to drink and can.that's your business.If you wish to stop and can't.that's our business.ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 1-877-272-2611 PHOTOS BY CHARLES CATCHPAUGH A huge body of water above the Magog dam quickly fills to overflowing.This and several other holding sites help control the flow of water into Sherbrooke.Food for thought -Persistence prevails when all else fails -Provided by Connie Bellam Ben by Daniel Shelton Vl-v.V (orANP/vj '‘ZJW.1 ’'W .CE “-¦nu ».- RECORD BCS: “Right now we are having problems communicating with them.We hope in the next months, they will be more willing to talk,” said Cowans, adding that till then, the association will concentrate on registering members.“I think the more people we get on our association, the better chance we have of being listened to,” he said.Cowans said he has also written to the alumni association asking for their support.He has not heard back from them and is not impressed with their lack of compassion.“Do they represent alumni or not, or are there different classes of alumni?” he asked.“I think the people who are following this, and a lot of people are following this, think that what we’re doing is a positive thing,” he said.“We’re on the school’s side, whether they believe it or not, and we’re afraid for it at the mo- ment.” Cowans said his association began by reaching out to alleged victims who have been chatting about the matter on the website Monsters and Critics.A posting last week explains: “The purpose of the association is to reach out and help those students who were subjected to physical and/or sexual abuse while at BCS, to promote truth, reconciliation, and justice for them, and to foster help, reconciliation, truth, and justice for any victims of similar abuse in society at large.“I am also interested in a lot of others who have not been part of that blog and feel they are isolated,” said Cowans.“There many be many others.We don’t really know.” Cowans, who said he was beaten but not sexually abused by Forster during his time as a student at BCS, said some were more affected than others.“I don’t think they’ve forgotten.I don’t think it bothers them in the same way.” He also acknowledges there were likely different degrees of abuse.And back then corporal punishment was not unusual at BCS and other schools, private or otherwise.Students at BCS note discipline was physical and they were caned by teachers and prefects (older students).“We want to appeal to the people who were victimized,” said Cowans, noting his association especially wants to reach Old Boys who attended BCS from 1953 to 1962.The association is asking victims to contact them at bcstruth@gmail.com Those who are not Internet savvy can write the association in the old fashioned way by sending a letter to The BCS Truth and Reconciliation Association Inc.at PO Box 565, Chester, NS, BOJ 1J0.“We hope that in the next months those BCS Old Boys who have been harmed and who have suffered as the result of Forster’s presence will register with us,” notes the association on its website post.“As our numbers grow so Doctors in favor of medicare D: Staff Sherbrooke octors from across Canada and Quebec | are calling on the Canadian Medical As-' sociation and national and provincial politicians to support pubic health care.As the CMA began its weeklong convention in Montreal this week, more than two dozen prominent Quebec doctors, including Dr.Réjean Hébert, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke, signed the “Déclaration de Montréal”, a plea to maintain and improve universally accessible, publicly financed health care system.The declaration by Médecins québécois pour le régime public seeks to debunk the myth that system costs are spiraling out of control and show why a shift from publicly-funded system to private for profit funding and delivery of healthcare would not improve sustainability, and would adversely affect system costs, efficiency, quality and accessibility.“The solutions to wait times and other challenges in the healthcare system are at our fingertips,” said Dr.Simon Turcotte, a general surgery resident and founding member of the Quebec group.“We have seen huge increases in the numbers of surgeries done in Quebec in the last year, all by improving service within the public system,” Turcotte remarked in a press release.“We need to focus on these positive solutions rather than moving towards models of care that involve user and facility fees and private insurance that would benefit wealthy patients and their physicians at the expense of the majority - hot a prescription the medical profession should stand behind.” “I signed this declaration because I firmly believe that patient interests, not those of a small group of physicians and investors, should drive de- CMA and governments to respond to the evidence, and to the real needs of Canadians, and promote reforms within the public health care system.” The Quebec doctors joined their voice to Canadian Doctors for Medicare which is asking for reforms to the health care system that focus on equity and quality rather than promoting private insurance and the creation of markets for buying and selling health care.“We believe all Canadians should have access to a quality health care system based on need and not ability to pay,” said Dr.Danielle Martin, founding chair of the group said in a press release.“As CMA members, we are asking our leaders to propose solutions to health care challenges that will benefit all patients, not just those who can afford to buy private insurance, pay user and facility fees, and choose boutique medicine.” Doctors who support medicare are concerned that outgoing CMA president Dr.Brian Day will be replaced by Dr.Robert Ouellet, a Quebec-based physician who has stated he believes in a greater role for private for profit delivery in health care.The doctors group released its own discussion paper on activity-based funding which notes the UK experience with ABF led the Chair of the British Medical Association to conclude just last month that the market has led to “competition not collaboration; fragmentation not continuity; inefficiency not efficiency,” and called for “an NHS untarnished by a market economy, true to its beginnings, giving the public a fair, caring, equitable and cost-effective health service.Not a service run like a shoddy supermarket war." “We hope that by detailing the experience of other countries, our paper will help CMA delegates understand the real risks of ABF, including lower quality, reduced accessibility, reduced efficiency and higher costs; particularly where it is linked to increased private for profit delivery,” declared Dr.our power as a lobby group will increase to the point that we will be able to exert sufficient pressure on the BCS Board that they will do what is right; namely, first to admit publicly that physical and sexual abuse occurred at the school, second, to apologize for the suffering that resulted; and third, agree that full public disclosure must be made.” “I think that statement on Monsters and Critics may have surprised a lot of people,” he said.“I’m not sure why that is.” Cowans said there has been a little less online chatting about the matter recently.Cowans said the way questions of abuse have been dealt with at schools and churches - like Sel-wyn House in Montreal and St-Georges Cathe- dral in Kingston - are what led his group to this particular path.“Things were not always handled well.” he said, noting that in most cases there is almost an ignoring of those who suffered.“I thing this is going to be one of the success stories where both sides come out winners,” said Cowans, explaining he based the group’s approach on the book No Future Without Forgiveness by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.“In fact.I’ve written to Bishop Tutu to tell him about it and asked him for his prayers." “According to Tutu’s book, there are three states that victims and those responsible for victimization go through.The first is truth, and the truth has to be admitted and that can lead to reconciliation between the two.But before reconciliation can take place, there has to be forgiveness." Truth and reconciliation commissions or truth commissions are established, usually by a governments, to reveal past wrongdoing in the hope of resolving conflict.The most famous is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by President Nelson Mandela after apartheid.The Canadian government constituted a truth commission to shed light on systematic abuse in native residential schools.Chaired by native judge Harry LaForme, the first aboriginal person to sit on any appellate court in Canada, the $60 million, five-year-long commission aims to give a voice to those who suffered and allow them to take steps toward healing.Attempts to mend the damage caused by native residential schools began in 1986 when the United Church of Canada apologized for its role in running a minority of the schools.In June, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an historic apology to generations of aboriginals who were victims of a “sad chapter in our history” that began in the 1870s and continued for many generations.Cowans believes the Truth and Reconciliation model can work in the case of BCS and be an example to other schools and churches dealing with systematic cases of abuse.“If it goes well, this will have a happy ending many of these cases don’t.” The Record attempted to get a comment about the Truth and Reconciliation Association from BCS management and its alumni association.Headmaster Lewis Evans referred us to board chairman David Stenason, who did not return our call.cision-making in healthcare,” said Georges Martin.Lévesque, an emergency physician and well-known TV personality in Quebec.“We are calling on elected officials within the RESEARCH VOLUNTEERS Earn a chance to win a #100 voucher at your favorite local grocery store! 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