The tangled history of the Furlong case
On Monday, the University of British Columbia reinstated John Furlong, 66, a top sports executive in Vancouver, as the keynote speaker at the Millenium Scholarship Breakfast next month after initially cancelling his appearance. The National Post’s Joseph Brean unpicks the tangled history.
Q: Why was Furlong such a controversial speaker?
A: It began in 2009 with a tip to Laura Robinson, a journalist with expertise in sports, both as a decorated athlete and coach. She heard that Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics, had been concealing his past as a physical education teacher at Immaculata Catholic School, a day school in Burns Lake, in 1969 and 1970, which goes unaddressed in his biography, Patriot Hearts — Inside the Olympics that Changed a Country. As she understood, Furlong had beaten children, perhaps even raped them. She started investigating.
Q: What did she find?
A: Robinson arranged to have a flyer displayed at the Burns Lake Band Office announcing her investigation into historical abuse by Furlong, and her request to hear stories in confidence. Three dozen people gathered, and waited together for an hour before she arrived, which was later flagged as a methodological concern. In the end, seven said they were physically abused by him, another that she was sexually abused.
Q: Did police investigate?
A: Yes, but not all the claims, and not to the satisfaction of many critics, including the Assembly of First Nations. Few actual police complaints were filed. In the case of Beverly Abraham, who contacted police with a complaint after being urged by Robinson, an investigating officer spoke with Abraham and her family members, and found “many troubling inconsistencies,” including changing names and dates. In the end, police found “nothing to substantiate the complaint” and therefore sent nothing to prosecutors.
Q: How did this go public?
A: Explosively. Robinson had shopped her story to some of the leading papers in the world, not just Canada, sometimes including the single allegation of sexual assault, at other times focusing on the physical abuse and Furlong’s apparent secrecy about his past. Both the Georgia Straight and the Anishinabek News published on Sept. 27, 2012. Robinson continued her pursuit of the story, focusing on why Furlong was still employed by Own The Podium, and making further allegations about domestic violence and abuse, and presenting a paper at a conference in Denmark.
Q: What did Furlong do?
A: At first he simply denied it. Then he sued for libel, eventually dropping a claim against the Georgia Straight to focus on Robinson as the true source of the libel. Furlong ultimately dropped this case after the last of the three civil cases failed.
Q: How did the civil cases go?
A: Disastrously for the plaintiffs; quite well for Furlong. One woman, Grace Jessie West, whom Robinson helped draft a statement, sued for physical and sexual abuse while at Immaculata in 1969-70. This case was dismissed after a judge found she had not even attended the school at that time. Daniel Morice filed another suit, but it was dismissed after it was shown he had been compensated for abuse at another school during the time he claimed to be abused. Abraham, whose complaint had been dismissed by the RCMP, consented to the dismissal of her civil case after the lawyer who represented all three withdrew from the files.
Q: Was that the end of it?
A: Not by a long shot. Denied her chance to cross-examine Furlong, Robinson filed her own lawsuit, claiming he libelled her as an activist posing as a journalist, with a habit of reckless inaccuracy. This was the only action that went to trial, and Robinson lost. A judge found her writing about Furlong “cannot be fairly characterized as the reporting of other persons’ allegations against him. Rather, the publications constitute an attack by Ms. Robinson on Mr. Furlong’s character, conduct and credibility.” Furlong’s rebuttals were in direct reply to this “attack,” and so they were protected by a kind of legal privilege, which he did not exceed, nor use with malice, the judge found.