Suspicion greets compensation announcement

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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.

Nellie Carlson, 78, is an Elder from Edmonton who works for the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women. Carlson suffered physical abuse while in residential school, and still suffers both physically and emotionally from it. She said she could not respect herself if she agreed to receive money for what happened to her.

"This (compensation) is nothing for replacement in terms of what we had to suffer. It's just a drop in the bucket," she said.

Beatrice Gladue, the executive director for the Tansi Friendship Centre Society, said the compensation is too little too late for many, including her 72-year-old father who still needs to work to support himself. She said there was no amount of money that would make up for the trauma he suffered because of the physical and sexual abuse he endured.

"To me it's like putting a Band-Aid on it and saying 'Yes, it has happened, but oh well, let's move on and here's a little bit of money to basically keep you guys quiet.'"

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine agreed with the two women. He too said no amount of money would ever heal the emotional scars left on generations of Aboriginal people. But, he said, 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."

Beatrice Gladue said she didn't consider it closure, "and [it] won't ever be."

Leonard Lake, Gladue's father, said there will be closure for him, but he's not confident he'll see a dime in compensation.

"It's hard to say if people will see this money," he said. "It all depends on how the government works. They could gobble all the money up." Lake is not alone in his skepticism. Charles Wood, chair of the board of directors for Blue Quills College in Alberta, thinks the compensation is just a lot of talk from the federal government. He doesn't expect the government to follow through on the commitments in the agreement. He also wonders about the timing of the announcement.

"It is a lot of talk, and I think it will cloud, and perhaps it will redirect, some of the attention away from the difficulties that the Liberal Party of Canada has placed itself in," Wood said. "You know, they want to be seen as the good guys, but their long track record does not add to the way the people think of them, including Aboriginal people. I think that they could've done so much more with regard to the Lubicon land claim for instance, the war veterans, because they are still not being looked after properly, and you can add any issues about the land claims that are taking forever. The issue of treaty rights continues to be abrogated, and on and on it goes," he sai.

Craig Brown is saddened to hear such pessimism.

"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.

Mike Benson, executive director of the National Residential School Survivor's Society (NRSSS), said that some survivors he's spoken with think the financial compensation offered in the package is an insult, but the majority are just happy the process has finally gotten to this point.

Benson said the NRSSS was also pleased to see a provision to fast-track payments to survivors 65 and over, a view shared by many of the older survivors he's spoken to.

"In fact, the night before last, I was at a community meeting where there were a number of survivors that were in their 70s. And they said, 'Ya, we don't think 10 and three is the right amount, but damn it, it's better than nothing and we'd better get it before we die.' So this is a really good thing to happen."

Benson was concerned, however, about compensation for the families of residential school survivors who have died since negotiations firstbegan. He spoke of a former residential school student who had just passed away. His funeral was held the day the compensation package was announced.

"I mean, he's been waiting for this package for years, and he's gone now. What happens to those claims?"

Brown said any former student who died prior to May 30 is not protected, but in the case of the man Benson mentioned and those who may have died, or may pass after May 30, their compensation will flow to their estates.

Benson said there was also the issue of school records and the verification needed to claim compensation.

"Most Canadians have records of their school years, school pictures, report cards, all that stuff. Survivors have absolutely nothing," he said. "And there was no discussion in this package about getting those archives to survivors and their descendents. And we're very adamant in saying that this must happen."

Brown agrees and said this will be a significant issue. He said "the churches have agreed to co-operate more extensively with this process, both in the truth and reconciliation aspect of it and in the verification of attendance aspect of it.

"There is going to be some verification process. It's inevitable. But we believe the government is going to make a good-faith attempt to administer this in a way that produces a result."

Survivors say it would have been nice to have had a formal apology from government as part of the package, but just the fact that the package is being put forward helps to officially recognize and validate the experiences of the survivors and help with the healing process.

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 Brown. Though British Columbia had already agreed to this provision earlier, the oter provinces and territories, and other ministries within the federal government, had not agree to this detail.

"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 (before the announcement) at our request, because we know it was an enormously important issue on the ground when the money actually starts to flow," he said.