The North Buxton Community Church congregation is taking legal action in an effort to keep the church and cemetery they have ancestral ties to.
Steven Pickard, a lawyer representing the congregation, says a $2-million lawsuit has been filed against the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada (BMEC). The congregation had been ordered to vacate the premise in June 2018, after the BMEC claimed legal ownership of the land and announced the intention of taking back the church and cemetery.
"The lawsuit is primarily to recover the land and claim ownership to the land itself. The primary thing [the congregation] is looking for is not money," says Pickard. "If for whatever reason the clerk determines that the BMEC should take the full title of the land, then the congregation is asking for the money back that had been invested in that land since they broke away from the BMEC."
Since the lawsuit was just filed this week, Pickard says it will take a while for the process to go through, adding the BMEC likely didn't receive the claim until Friday morning.
"There is a hearing in September that was brought by BMEC to evict the congregation from their church but how that interplay's with this claim... we'll figure that out," says Pickard.
Michael Czuma, the lawyer representing the BMEC says this recent legal action will only get the hopes up for the residents of North Buxton, who "will inevitably be disappointed."
"It would be a gross understatement to say that their new claim is frivolous and without any merit. No amount of legal bafflegab can change the fact that the BMEC owns the property and the North Buxton people will have to leave," says Czuma in an emailed statement. "The claim will, of course, be defended, wasting everybody’s time and resources, since it cannot succeed."
In the meantime, Pickard says members of the church in North Buxton have no intention of leaving.
"As long as they have that right, they'll stay there," says Pickard.