Residential School Resolution

Introduction

A couple of years ago, the Canadian government agreed to a compensation package for survivors of the residential school system.

A CBC radio news report this morning highlighted a group of Aboriginal individuals who will not be entitled to compensation as part of the resolution program because of faulty government record keeping.

To a jaundiced eye, it could seem that the Canadian government is doing to Aboriginal people what it did to Canada's Merchant Mariners -- waiting for them to die off.

(Veterans of WWII, merchant mariners, many too young or too old to enlist, kept Canada's troops supplied at great risk to themselves. They had to fight for 55 years to be recognized by the federal government and to win the right to compensation. I'm not sure that this has been paid yet.)

The following post contains information that I've copied from the CBC's website and the Canadian government's website, Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada.

Here are the facts, as relayed by the CBC, and the problem facing some seniors on collecting what is due them.

Background
"In 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its "Indian problem" within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children were supposed to prepare them for life in white society. But the aims of assimilation meant devastation for those who were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Decades later, aboriginal people began to share their stories and demand acknowledgement of — and compensation for — their stolen childhoods." cbc.ca
(http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-692/disasters_tragedies/residential_schools/)

Quick Facts on the Resolution Program
(copied from cbc.ca)

• It has taken more than a year for the compensation package to receive final approval. In December 2006, it was still in the process of being approved.
• According to CBC News, those who qualified for the compensation could expect to receive their money beginning in September 2007.
• Survivors over age 65 could apply to be fast-tracked for an advance payment of $8,000.
• The agreement proposed a dispute resolution process that improved on that which was announced in 2002.
• Some of the money in the package was dedicated to commemorating the experiences of residential school survivors ($10 million) and to a "truth and reconciliation" process ($60 million).
• The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, set up in 1998 for residential school survivors, also received a further $125 million.
• On the day the compensation was announced, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler called the residential school policy "the most disgraceful, harmful and racist act in our history."
• The agreement did not include a formal apology from the government to all students. In 1998 the government apologized to those who were sexually and physically abused, but in 2005 some aboriginal groups were pressing for a more general apology for the act of placing aboriginal students in residential schools.
• Plans are underway for the Indian Residential School Museum of Canada. Scheduled to open in June 2008, it will be located in the former Portage Indian School on the Long Plain First Nation outside Portage la Prairie, Man.
• The museum's purpose is to "create a memorial to those who went through the experience... as well as to explain what happened to others – aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike – and how the residential school system has impacted on present-day aboriginal life."

The Point System

Apparently, the way the government is going to award compensation is based on a point system.

Victims subjected to fondling and kissing get 5 to 10 points. Victims of oral sex 26 to 30 points, and victims that were subjected to "severe persistent sexual intercourse" receive 45 to 60 points. The points represent between $5,000 and $200,000. There is nothing offered for loss of language and culture, or breakdown of the family unit.

Fast Track Program

Aboriginal seniors (over 65) who were placed in residential school can apply for a fast-track program whereby they can receive $8,000 today. This would be deducted from any future payment they would receive.

Sounds good. After all, these people are getting older and shouldn't have to wait. Ah, but, because this is a government program, there is a rub. And here it is... seniors have to be able to prove that they were in residential schools. Attendance records were regularly distroyed and the government has admitted that there are gaps in their records.

This means that 1,390 senior citizens claims have been declined according to the government website at: http://www.irsr-rqpi.gc.ca/english/advance_payment_program.html

Enough already

Fourteen hundred claimants are hardly going to bankrupt government coffers. If this fast-track measure was put in place as a good-will gesture, as the government claims, then get on with it and give the people their money.

I have no idea what help people can expect to receive with $8,000. It doesn't sound like much to me.

The government has a very long history of nickle-and-diming First Nations peoples. Here's one example. In the 1750s here in Nova Scotia, the provincial government offered a 300 pound bounty for Mi'kmaq scalps. Three years later, after the population had been decimated, 100 pounds per year was offered to help the survivors live. 300 versus 100. (I may be a little off on the numbers, but the concept is accurate. I'll get proper backup for these numbers and update this post later today.) Apparently, a scalp is worth more than a life.

If non-Aboriginals would show support for these seniors, as we did for our aging mariners, maybe the government would be forced to agree that their destruction of records shouldn't further harm 1,400 individuals who have suffered enough.

What you can do

Show your support. Write a letter to:

The Honourable Jim Prentice
Minister responsible for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada
Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada
90 Sparks Street
Room 341
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H4

Regards,
Colleen