God not welcome in Northern Saskatchewan:
SaskPower cut off elderly lay missionaries’ electricity
 Back in their home for just one week, lay missionaries, John and Gay Caswell, the beleaguered founders of Our Lady of the North School in Brabant Lake, Saskatchewan had their electricity cut off today.
Mrs. Caswell, living for a week in what Roger Parenteau of the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation (SHC) described as a concession of the “status quo”, was working around the house when her power went off. “The SaskPower truck came and took away our electric meter. There’s no electricity for cooking, washing, or freezing in three freezers and two fridges,” Mrs. Caswell told Canada Free Press in a telephone interview this evening. “There was no warning of any kind. SaskPower is very much a political organization in the north.”
Status quo, ala Roger Parenteau meant the Caswells didn’t have to move all of their belongings out of the house as had been originally ordered. “He said in our brief meeting last Monday that `we will maintain the status quo’.”
 The Caswells, parents of seven children, three of whom are in religious life in the United States, drove home through a snowstorm after a seven-hour trip for supplies on April 24. Upon their arrival home, they discovered their locks had been changed by SHC employees and there was an Eviction Notice stapled to the door. Since they needed to put their groceries away, John broke a window to get inside. Vaughn Skogstad, chairman of La Ronge Housing Authority and an officer of the South-end RCMP Detachment soon arrived to tell the couple that they had committed an unlawful entry to their house, ordering them to leave the premises. The couple was taken to the police station, and were later released with no charges laid. They hitchhiked home and having no place else to go, camped out at their school, with no access to their food and clothing. They were told they had 15 days to get their possessions out of the house. When they next saw their home of 11 years, the windows had already been boarded up.
 Long term tenants with their rent paid up, the Caswells had applied to own their home. They were told by Parenteau that they could buy the house for $20,000. Within a week they sent a cheque for $20,000, plus the requisite proof of income available, to the housing authority.
“But they returned the money and told the RCMP that we had made no attempt to buy the house and that we didn’t pay our rent,” said Mrs. Caswell. “This is not true.”
If this sounds a cautionary tale of the cruel far north where elderly citizens can be thrown out in the cold and locked out of their own home, it gets worse.
Unfortunately, John and Gay Caswell are all too familiar with opposition from people with jobs in various levels of government. They run an Independent Catholic School, which offers alternatives to the public school in their area. They speak out about abuses in healthcare, for example including forced abortion, birth control and sterilization. Gay Caswell, formerly a member of the legislature, recently wrote a children’s book, When the Children Prayed, about a true positive experience of a northern residential school. Mr. and Mrs. Caswell recently travelled to four communities to distribute a thousand copies of pro-life newspapers.
Supporters of the couple are convinced that this is not just another bureaucratic foul up and that they are being persecuted for expressing their religious and moral views.
“We were told by Sgt. James of the RCMP, `People keep their house who do what they are told,’” said Mrs. Caswell.
“Apparently, speaking up for the rights of northern babies to live, helping parents to have access to alternative education, and expressing their religious and moral views is not doing what they are told. This is why they have been evicted,” said daughter Naomi Charles.
“The goal is to wreck the school. This was stated very clearly at a September 17 Appeals hearing,” said Mrs. Caswell. “The two people from La Ronge Housing emphatically said that we cannot have a school. That is why they are after our house to stop and punish us. The hearing is recorded and the words were blatantly and bluntly stated.”
John and Gay Caswell founded the mission school, Our Lady of the North, in March of 1996. Since then they have been teaching, catechizing and spreading the faith. As their mission website states: they “provide catechism classes and resources for children and adults, make available an academic education up to Grade 12 for children and adults and do charitable work.” They recently began an organization to fight for the pro-life cause in northern Saskatchewan, called “North Star Pro-Life”.
Straight out of a movie with an over-the-top backwoods enemy ordering their victims to get out of town, someone wants rid of Gay and John Caswell. The couple has made bitter enemies over the years for writing about and exposing the injustices against the natives; injustices they spell out as “coercive sterilization” and “abortion”.
The Caswells stress that this is not so much about two people in northern Saskatchewan losing their home for being pro-life as it is about the injustices being perpetrated upon the natives of northern Saskatchewan. In her April 29 interview on Relevant Radio, Mrs. Caswell said, “The natives who are being persecuted, who are being sterilized, are having more terrible things happen to them than what is happening to us. This is Canada, we’re supposed to be the sensible human rights peacemakers, and this is how we are treating our native people..if anyone protests they get it.”
“Forced sterilization—Sounds bizarre doesn’t it? It happened in our country. It’s happening up in Canada right now. There is an evil spirit and it’s called the culture of death,” said radio talk show host Drew Mariani.
Armed only with their bible, the Caswells insist they are “only down and never out”.
With no electricity, tonight they will be barbecuing their dinner.
“We live in the 59th parallel so it doesn’t get dark here until about 11 p.m.
“They want us out. If it was God telling me that, I’d listen, but if it’s somebody else, no thanks.”
Recognizing the mounting support pouring in from the public at large, Mrs. Caswell said, “People admire courage.”
Our Lady of the North School humbly welcomes financial support. Funds are needed for legal fees as well as for supplies for the mission and school. Readers can contact the Caswells by emailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Our Lady of the North
| | Judi McLeod
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Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.
Judi can be emailed at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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