British Columbia·Updated

Children held in B.C. Doukhobor camp in 1950s offered $10M compensation package

Up to 200 children of members of the Sons of Freedom religious sect were forcibly taken by the province, with many held in a camp in the B.C. Interior in the 1950s.

'To me, it was a prison,' says one of up to 200 children taken by B.C. government

CBC News(Royal B.C. Museum/Office of the B.C. Ombudsperson)

The B.C. government has offered a $10-million compensation package to people taken from their homes as children 70 years ago due to their parents' religious beliefs.

The offer was made along with an apology from Attorney General Niki Sharma at a private event in Castlegar today, where she met with members and relatives of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors who were forcibly removed from their parents in the 1950s.

Many were placed in a former tuberculosis sanatorium in New Denver, B.C., about 280 kilometres east of Kelowna, between 1953 and 1959, where they have testified they received physical and psychological abuse.

The Sons of Freedom were a small group within the Doukhobor community, an exiled Russian Christian group that was once known for naked protests and periodically burning down their own homes as a rejection of materialism.

WATCH | B.C. government agrees to apology following ombudsperson report:

B.C. to make a formal apology to Doukhobors

1 day agoDuration 2:57The provincial government will be making a formal apology later this year for its treatment of children from the Doukhobor community in the Kootenays. But the apology is not seen as an entirely positive development.

There may be up to 100 survivors from the Sons of Freedom group, who are now in their 70s and 80s.

Sharma acknowledged the children were "mistreated both physically and psychologically" and that the government's actions caused anxiety for the broader Doukhobor community.

'To me, it was a prison': Survivor

Walter Swetlishoff, 77, said he has waited for the apology years.

He said he lived in hiding for four years until he was caught by RCMP officers at the age of 11.

He spent four months at a camp for Doukhobor children in the 1950s.

"To me, it was a prison," he said in a 2023 interview with CBC.

WATCH | A clip from a 1958 CBC News documentary about the Doukhobor children:

From the Archives: Doukhobor children taken from families

1 day agoDuration 2:59In this 1958 clip from the CBC program Close-Up, members of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors visit their children, who were forcibly removed from their parents in the 1950s and placed in a former tuberculosis sanatorium in New Denver, B.C.

Swetlishoff was only allowed to see his parents twice a month, for an hour. He says his experience in the camp and earlier of being hidden away by his parents for four years, have led to lifelong scars.

New podcast spotlights rural B.C.'s Doukhobor community, legacy of sect's leader

"It's just the only pain that I have, is that I'm fearful of everything," the Crescent Valley resident said through tears.

In a followup interview on Wednesday, Swetlishoff said he's glad to be receiving an apology "after so many years."

"I'm happy it's finally being done."

Apology comes after 2023 report

The apology was agreed to after B.C. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke filed a July 2023 report titled Time to Right the Wrong.

The ombudsperson is an independent officer of the legislature who investigates complaints of unfair or unreasonable treatment at the hands of provincial or local officials.

Time to Right the Wrong was itself a follow-up to a 1999 review by the Office of the Ombudsperson that called for a formal apology to the interned Doukhobors and compensation, neither of which were delivered in the ensuing years.