apologies/compensation to-date:
=>2007 settlement:
The court-approved compensation scheme arose out of a comprehensive class-action settlement in 2007 involving survivors, the federal government and churches that ran the schools. The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement included a Common Experience Payment for all students who attended the schools, a five-year endowment for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) to adjudicate claims from students who had suffered abuse at the schools.
Under the IAP, claimants were entitled to up to $275,000 each, based on the nature and level of abuse suffered.
In all 38,276 claims were received, with Saskatchewan having the most claimants. Adjudicators awarded $2.14 billion in compensation to 23,431 claimants while another 4,415 claimants received compensation directly from the federal government.
Overall, the government paid out $3.23 billion in compensation and other costs. The process itself cost another $411 million.
=> Nov 2017 apology/settlement to residential school survivors in Newfoundland & Labrador (per Macleans):
Stephen Harper’s 2008 apology to residential school survivors was considered a historic, if largely symbolic, step towards reconciliation with Canada’s First Peoples. In making the gesture, however, Harper failed to acknowledge the Innu, Inuit and NunatuKavut people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Why? Because residential schools in the province were set up before Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation. The five residential schools that operated in the province—the last closing in 1980—weren’t federally run, and so the Harper government evidently felt no need to recognize the thousands of survivors who attended them, nor their families or communities.
The decision was seen as a particularly glaring flaw of the apology—one that translated as a distinct lack of sincerity and empathy for Canada’s Indigenous people. A class-action lawsuit ensued and, last year, the Liberal government agreed to distribute $50 million to Indigenous survivors who were left out of the original apology and settlement.
On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved further to make up for the previous government’s omission with a tearful apology delivered to hundreds of former students and their families in Goose Bay. “Saying that we are sorry today is not enough. It will not undo the harm that was done to you. It will not bring back the languages and traditions you lost. It will not take away the isolation and vulnerability you felt when you separated from your families, communities and cultures,” the Prime Minister said. “We share this burden with you by fully accepting our responsibilities—and our failings—as a government and as a country.”
It seems perverted to me that Canadians should be given a day's pay to celebrate our reconciliation with Canada's indigenous peoples while Ottawa is withholding compensation to them.
waldo factoids:
- in regards indigenous children taken from homes and communities under the on-reserve child welfare system
from Jan. 1, 2006, to a date to be determined by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT). (the waldo emphasizes the reference point includes the complete Harper Conservative governance period).
- judicial challenge was not in regards compensation or compensation amounts; rather, the challenge principally centered on jurisdictional standing of the CHRT - maintaining that a full judicial review is required to validate said standing (among several other matters).
- at the time of the initiation of the court challenge, then leader of the CPC (Andrew Scheer) agreed that a judicial review was necessary.
- on a practical level, the challenge was concerned with the mechanics of determining compensation eligibility and how payments would be made. Additionally, the challenge questioned the CHRT acting as the conduit for compensation payments and questioned the mandate of the CHRT to establish new categories of persons/groups eligible for compensation.
- even if one accepts... outright accepts the CHRT findings, one finding is to determine the best independent process to distribute the compensation and decide who qualifies - something that hasn't occurred; something that requires negotiation between the government and an assortment of indigenous stakeholders.
accordingly to summarily state that, as you did, "compensation is being withheld" is woefully mis/underinformed... compensation to who and how much, hey!