Compensation package one step closer to being finalized

It's been more than five months since the announcement that an agreement-in-principle had been reached paving the way for residential school survivors to receive financial compensation for their experiences within the residential school system. In that time, the initial optimism that the agreement meant money would soon be in the hands of former students has been tempered by the realization that it will likely be many months before any payments are handed out.

Under the agreement-in- principle, reached on Nov. 20, 2005, eligible residential school survivors would each receive a common experience payment of $10,000, plus $3,000 for each year they attended a residential school. It also includes a provision that promised to fast-track compensation payments of $8,000 to survivors 65 and older.

The process of turning the agreement in principle into an agreement in fact was stalled a few days later when then prime minister Paul Martin dissolved Parliament and called a federal election. His defeat and the changing of the guard that came with Stephen Harper's victory also served to slow down the process.

Another roadblock was thrown up when one of the parties to the agreement failed to commit their support to the compensation package. During a press conference in Winnipeg on April 19, Harper said one of the groups "on the Aboriginal side" was holding up completion of the package. On April 10, Jim Prentice, minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada had indicated it was one of the law firms involved in putting the agreement in principle together that still hadn't committed to sign the agreement.

On April 25, Prentice stood up in the House of Commons and announced that all the parties involved-the government, the Assembly of First Nations, the lawyers for the survivors and the three churches involved in running the schools-had agreed to sign.

"The government will immediately consider the settlement agreement and the interim payments and timing of those payments," Prentice said.

Once all the parties have signed, the agreement then has to go to Cabinet for review and approval, and then it will go before the courts in nine provinces for their approval, said Steve Brazeau, media relations and public affairs officer with Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada, the federal department responsible for working to resolve issues surrounding residential schools.
"I really can't speculate on how long it's going to go through courts," Brazeau said. "I mean, a court process is a court process. We can't really speculate as to how long it's going to take. But one of the steps that we've overcome was that all the parties at the discussions ... have all agreed to sign. So there's one hurdle that we've overcome."

Darcy Merkur is a partner with Thomson, Rogers, the law firm that has been handling the national class action suit on behalf of residential school survivors. He expects the agreement will be before the courts by the summer, and is hopeful the settlement agreement will take effect early in 2007.

While the process of taking the agreement through the court system is a bit of an unknown, he doesn't anticipate any problems to present themselves.

"You never know what to expect. We're optimistic that the class, the survivors at large, all appreciate that under all the circumstances it's a very good settlement and hopefully there won't be too many stumbling blocks at all."

It's not clear whether or not the fast-tracked payments for elderly survivors will go ahead before the agreement receives approval in the courts, Merkur said.

"No one knows the answer. We are waiting to hear what the Conservative government is planning, if anything, with respect to an advance payment to the elderly," Darcy Merkur said.
Merkur is concerned with all the misinformation floating around about the compensation process-including rumours that some people have already received their compensation- and wants to set the record straight.

"There's a lot of misinformation in the public, in the media, with the class members, being spread by the people in the communities. A ton of misinformation. We hear stories all the time about people receiving their common experience payments and receiving their advance payments and I can assure you nobody's received either as of this point," he said.

"We're here, we're in the know and we're happy to answer questions from survivors or the media at any point to clarify the real situation ...we're very concerned about misinformation and we hope that people check with the right sources."