Compensation package announced

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A compensation package for the survivors of residential schools announced in Ottawa Nov. 23 is receiving mixed early reviews in the Native community, with many former students, upon hearing details of the agreement, expressing a wide range of emotions, including frustration, anger and sadness.

The deal was hammered out by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the government of Canada, church organizations, former students, and 70 lawyers representing the majority of residential school survivors who had launched complaints to resolve the issues surrounding abuses suffered in the schools.

The settlement would resolve all legal claims against the government and churches in return for "common experience payments" of $10,000 per student, plus $3,000 per year an individual attended a residential school. The average payment the former students will receive is $24,000, said Craig Brown, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the Baxter national class action. "That average is very close to the amount that we were asking for in our litigation plan," he said.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine said no amount of money would ever heal the emotional scars left on generations of Aboriginal people, but the settlement package, which also provides more money to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and will fund a truth and reconciliation commission, will contribute to the path of healing.

"Today marks the first step towards closure on a terrible, tragic legacy for the thousands of First Nations individuals who suffered physical, sexual or psychological abuse."

The announcement has been greeted with skepticism by some who aren't convinced the money will ever work its way down to survivors. But Brown is more optimistic.

"I think that this is a completely different situation than we've ever seen before. This is a situation in which the government of Canada and the churches and all of the plaintiffs, all the major players acting for plaintiffs, have come together over a five-month period and have come to a collective agreement about what is to be done... I think it's going to come to fruition," said the lawyer. He also said it would be very difficult, if another party were to be elected in an upcoming election, to back away from the agreement.

"I believe the money will begin to flow."

He said the agreement is a very complicated one and it will take time for people to come to terms with its contents, and the $1.9 million estimated to pay out survivors is only a small portion of the cost the government has agreed to incur.

"In this case, all of the administration costs, all of the hearing costs, plus a good percentage of the lawyers' fees in association with the individual assessment process is going to be paid by the government of Canada.

One big flaw in the agreement is that it fails to protect against government clawbacks.

"And the AFN took on the job of writing to the provincial governments to try to obtain their buy-in to a plan to waive any clawback and to guarantee social program payments to survivors who were receiving compensation," said Craig Brown. Though British Columbia had already agreed to this provision earlier, the other provinces and territories, and other ministries within the federal government, had not agreed to this provision.

"Written into the agreement-in-principle ... is a statement that the federal government will seek those undertakings from the provinces and will seek it from the appropriate ministries of the federal government. That was added into the agreement at 10:30 Sunday night at our request, because we know it was an enormously important issue on the ground when the money actually starts to flow," Brown said.

Ed Bitternose is a band councillor with Gordon First Nation and a residential school survivor. He said his first reaction when the compensation package was announced was fear.

What Bitternose is afraid of is seeing residential school survivors in his community gtting their hopes up about receiving the promised compensation within a short period of time.

"I'm so afraid that they build their expectations so high. And most of the time it's people who aren't in a good situation," Bitternose said. "With this last announcement, with the 65 and over folks ... some of them are expecting money before Christmas. And they built their expectations that Christmas for grandchildren was going to be better and maybe more and its not happening. And I think it hurts them more than anyone else."

A number of members of Gordon First Nation have already received compensation through the courts for the abuse they suffered while at the Gordon residential school, where pedophile William Starr was employed during the 1970s and 1980s. The band wasn't prepared to provide support to those people, to help them make wise decisions about what to do with their money, Bitternose said. He hopes the situation will be different when the compensation starts coming in this time around.

"That much money, coming into one community, $27,000 coming into one person's pocket who's not always used to having that amount of money at one time, I hope we prepare ourselves to use it in positive structured ways," he said. "In our community, I've informed our economic development person to look at things that we can advise our people on, saying 'What are you prepared to do with money if you're going to get it? Pay bills, maybe put some away for your grandchildren's education, or go out and buy a new car, or what may happen'... In the whole scheme of things, $27,000 is not a whole lot, but it's a whole lot to someone who's on old age security. Hopefully we prepare ourselves for that happening."

With the compensation package being announced just days before the fall of the Liberal government and the beginning of the federal election campaign, Bitternose hopes that whoever ends up forming the next government won't derail the plans for compensation. Responsibility for what appened in the residential schools doesn't fall with a Conservative government or a Liberal government, he said, but with the Canadian government. If there is a change, he hopes the new government "carries on in saying yes, the government of Canada did wrong to these folks and they're owed compensation. They're owned an apology."

If candidates come to Gordon, they will be questioned about continued commitment to the compensation plan, Bitternose said. "And I'm hoping that First Nations people in other places also ask those same questions."