Expect money next December

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Maggie Hogson, a well-known activist in the area of residential school survivor healing, said the recently announced compensation package for former residential school students provides formal acknowledgment that the residential school system devastated the Native community over generations.

Hogson, who was a member of the Aboriginal Working Caucus that provided advice to the federal government on residential school compensation, said there is much good to be found in the agreement-in-principle announced in Ottawa on Nov. 23.

She said the blanket pay-out of $10,000 per student, plus $3,000 per year each student attended residential school is a "huge move forward," as is the increase to the maximum payment a survivor can receive in damages for severe sexual and physical abuse. The cap jumps to $550,000 from $250,000 if a student chooses to go through the newly-designed individual assessment program instead of taking the blanket pay-out, she said.

Also improved is the application to receive compensation, now whittled down to a page-and-a-quarter from the current 50 pages in the Alternative Dispute Resolution program, Hogson said.

What makes Hogson sad about the new agreement is that it doesn't provide expedited pay-outs to the sick. Only those former students 65 and over will see their payments fast-tracked.

"I had a lady come up to me and say 'My sister is dying right now. Do you think she'd qualify for an early payment?' And I said not within the agreement that was reached. So for the family members and for the person who is critically ill, that's an upsetting piece."

Hogson has long worked on issues surrounding the legacy of the residential school system. She is the co-chair of an initiative to declare May 26 the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation.

She said the day would help Native people and the Canadian public move forward toward healing together.

Maggie Hogson said it's for Native people to acknowledge the legacy within their own communities, where "some of the people who worked in the schools were actually community members, and then some of them, who were in school, came home and went on to drink too much and commit acts of violence and affect other people's lives."

And it's about educating Canadians about part of our collective history, said Hogson, "which is important, because often there are a lot of people who don't understand the compensation," she said.

During the past 10 years that compensation has been discussed, Hogson said there has been a lot of fear in Canada's religious communities.

Residential schools were run by a variety of Christian organizations, and the compensation discussion has left many people concerned that the churches would be run into bankruptcy.

"They treat it as something that is really going to cost or destroy their church from their perspective... so it built up a perspective that certainly had nothing to do with healing and reconciliation. It had to do with our people trying to hurt their churches."

Part of the compensation package that was hammered out through discussions between 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 individual complaints or joined class actions is a truth-telling component, said Hogson.

"The truth-telling process, it's partly to deal with the public inquiry so that there's a public record for what's happened."

There is also money for commemoration, about $50,000 per school, said Hogson.

"There were a lot of people in communities who said 'Why would I want to commemorate a horrible experience.' It's not commemorating the experience. It's commemorating the people who went to the schools who may not be here. To make sure our grandchildren and the other Canadians don't forget what happened. In different cases in Canada they have cenotaphs and things that commemorate people who have cmmitted their lives, you know, to fighting wars, etc. This was a much longer-term event than just a short-term war. It certainly profoundly affected our community, so they've now committed $20 million to commemoration."

Initial reports made to this news organization after the compensation announcement demonstrated that many in the Native community were not convinced that the government would follow through on its promises. Hogson said what's concerning the people she's talked to is when they'll have their money in their hands.

"I've mostly heard, 'When am I going to get my cheque? And there's a huge misunderstanding. A lot of people misunderstand that when they filled out the registration form for the AFN saying that they are going to be part of the mailing list that they were actually signing an application form ... And so that was a misunderstanding that will make a lot of people disappointed," she said.

She doesn't expect that money will begin flowing to the communities until next December.

"It depends on how long it takes the courts to ratify the agreement, because it is a class action. They will need to have it agreed to by the courts."

Craig Brown is a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the Baxter national class action. He was part of an "intense" five-month negotiation that ended with the agreement-in-principle being reached.

Brown said there are many things that must happen before compensation will be paid, including waiting to see if the Liberal party will be returned to power in the upcoming federal election. If not, another party would have to review the package and decide not to kill the agreement.

Then there is the opt-out phase of the agreement, where individual former students can choose not to accept the compensation. Once the opt-out phase has passed, then cheques would be cut in the months after that.

Brown said people have to remember that this still is just an agreement-in-principle.

"In [the final agreement] we will work out with mch greater particularity the timelines and the actual procedures for application and payment out of money."