Trustees of four Vancouver-area churches will be filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, appealing an earlier court decision which prevents them using their church buildings.

In spite of the fact that the parishes have made generous offers to settle the dispute, the Diocese of New Westminster seems determined to portray the Vancouver parishes as litigation villains who are unwilling to negotiate with the diocese outside of the courts.

The diocese declares:

ANiC Trustees Initiate Further Legal Action

Bishop Ingham has offered to meet with the leaders of the four congregations to discuss how everyone can move forward in keeping with the decisions of the courts and appoint new clergy for these parishes. To date, there has been no response.

Bishop Ingham and Diocesan leadership do not believe that there is any need to take any further court challenges, which will incur more expense and anxiety. However they respect the Plaintiffs’ right to request the Supreme Court to hear their case as the final legal option available to them.

Ingham has left the parishes the option of submitting to his leadership, leaving their buildings or continuing the appeal. His belief that there isn’t any need for an appeal is hardly surprising since things have gone his way so far: the fox has a chicken in its mouth and doesn’t see any need for the chicken to continue struggling.

A diocesan document that was filed with the courts to obtain costs from the parishes goes further:

ANiC is obviously pursuing systematic, widespread litigation across the country aimed at securing church properties for its use, in the same manner as this litigation. As ANiC has stated in its newsletter, the case at bar is just the “first significant ANiC parish trial”. If ANiC were to be insulated from adverse cost awards (and a fortiori. To be indemnified for its own legal costs from parish funds), the natural result will be simply that ANiC will pursue litigation more readily and ACC will be left to defend itself against a zealous litigant with nothing to lose.

All of which is arrant nonsense, since in the vast majority of court cases, it is the ACoC diocese that has been the zealous litigant. Even the Vancouver parishes only used the courts as a last resort: it was the only alternative to being thrown out of their buildings.

The same twaddle is being peddled from the pulpit in the Diocese of Niagara: the diocese is claiming to be the defendant in the Niagara court cases, even though it initiated the litigation.