Vancouver Anglicans seek $100,000-plus in court costs

By Douglas Todd
1 Mar 2011

The Vancouver-area Anglican diocese is trying to recoup more than $100,000 in court costs from a bitter dispute with conservative dissidents over four church properties.

The diocese, led by Bishop Michael Ingham, recently applied to the B.C. Appeal Court to retrieve a portion of the soaring court costs in a case rooted in a battle over same-sex blessings and how to interpret the Bible.
The diocese has been saying for months the three-year-old legal dispute has bled away financial assets that could have been more usefully going to helping the poor, protecting the environment, supporting the Third World, strengthening parishes and other purposes.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher awarded court costs to the diocese on June 29, 2010, when he upheld the diocese's right to the four parish properties, including 1,000-member St. John's Shaughnessy (left), which has become home to evangelical Anglicans.

However, the dissident parishes argued in B.C. Appeal Court against having to pay the court costs to the more liberal diocese, even though the diocese ended up winning in both B.C. Supreme Court and in a unanimous decision of the B.C. Appeal Court. the rest