Mixed reaction to compensation package

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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 fear, frustration, anger and sadness.

The deal was hammered out by the Assembly of First Nations, 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, 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," said Carlson.

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 funds 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," he said.

Gladue told Windspeaker it was not closure, "and 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 expects the government to fail in following 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 righs continues to be abrogated, and on and on it goes," he said.

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 what 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 Survivors' 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."

When Windspeaker spoke to Benson he was optimistic the first compensatin cheques to survivors 65-plus would be sent out within a couple of weeks, but Brown said things will not happen that fast. Much will turn on the political fortunes of the Liberal party. If they are re-elected, or if another party comes into power and decides not to kill the agreement, which is still a possibility, then approval for the agreement will be seen in spring 2006. Then the opt out time would have to pass, and that could take another few months. He said people have to remember that this still is just an agreement-in-principle.

"In that document we will work out with much greater particularity the timelines and the actual procedures of for application and payment out of money."

Benson was concerned about compensation for the families of residential school survivors who have died since negotiations first began. He spoke of a former residential school student who had just died. 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 die, 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 veification 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.

Bertha Allen, this year's National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation Lifetime Achievment Award winner, agrees.

"At least they recognize that a lot of former students that went to residential schools have suffered a lot emotionally and physically and culturally and as a result of that you see a lot of them in the position they are in today."

The position they are in today often means the former students are living on welfare and other social programs, and 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 in the Blackwater/Barney case, the other provinces and territories, and other ministries within the federal government, had not agree to this detail.

"Written into the agreement-in-principle and probably, I think it's the very last, right at the very end, 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 at our request, because we know it was an enormously important issue on the ground when the money actually starts to flow."