“The most important thing to her, today, is she was heard.”

Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman commenting on the reaction of a woman upon learning of charges filed against a 92-year-old priest who sexually assaulted her around 1968 when she was a ten-year-old at the Fort Alexander residential school, northeast of Winnipeg. The charge was the result of a decade long investigation of this residential school.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/fort-alexander-residential-school-arrest-1.6492116

https://nypost.com/2022/06/18/retired-priest-arthur-masse-arrested-for-manitoba-sex-assault/

“Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson told CBC a criminal charge being laid after so many years was a kind of vindication for the community. 

‘There have been many stories people have been talking about this. There have never been any formal charges,’ he said. ‘Our people need to be believed when they tell something and it’s very disheartening as a chief when our membership says something and then they’re not believed because of stigma,’ said Henderson.

‘People wouldn’t say anything for nothing.'” 

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