Advocates say as many as 50,000 children could be covered by the decision.
Trudeau’s government sought a judicial review of the ruling and drew criticism for “fighting Indigenous kids in court”. Canada’s federal court dismissed the government’s application in September, saying that Ottawa failed to establish that the compensation ruling was unreasonable.
The government appealed that decision but said it had “paused” the appeal while it engaged in efforts to reach an out-of-court settlement with the groups instead.
It announced last month it would set aside $42 billion to resolve the dispute but said negotiations were ongoing. The talks were chaired by Murray Sinclair, the former senator who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated residential schools.
The agreements in principle would compensate First Nations children on reserves and in the Yukon who were removed from their homes between April 1, 1991, and March 31, 2022, as well as their caregivers. The funding set aside for long-term reforms would include money to help support children ageing out of the child welfare system and for on-reserve housing.
Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous people and the intergenerational trauma stemming from its colonial policies drew renewed attention last year when several Indigenous communities said ground-penetrating radar had uncovered evidence of hundreds of unmarked graves on or near the sites of former residential schools.
The Canadian government has been fighting the push for compensation through the courts since 2007. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen here greeting indigenous Chief Michael LeBourdais of the Whispering Pines Indian Board in October 2021. Credit:The Canadian Press
Beginning in the 19th century, roughly 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families – often forcibly – and sent to the government-funded, mostly church-run schools, which operated with the aim of assimilating Indigenous children. The last government-funded school closed in 1997.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a 2015 report that many children suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the institutions, which punished them for speaking their languages and practicing their traditions in what it said amounted to “cultural genocide.”
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The commission documented the deaths of thousands of children at the school but said the figure was probably an undercount, in part because record-keeping was shoddy. Children died from malnutrition, diseases that spread easily in cramped quarters, suicide and escape attempts. Some were buried in unmarked graves.
The federal government apologised for residential schools in 2008. Trudeau has vowed to implement all of the commission’s 94 calls to action, including one to reduce the disproportionate number of Indigenous children in the child welfare system – a situation that a cabinet minister once described as a “humanitarian crisis”.
Kamloops Indian Residential School survivor Evelyn Camille, 82, raises her fist as she speaks about her experience at the school.Credit:The Canadian Press
Roughly 7 percent of children in Canada are Indigenous, but they make up more than 52 percent of children in foster care, according to 2016 census data. Advocates have contended that the child welfare system is effectively a modern version of the residential school system.
In 2019, Trudeau’s government passed a law that sought to affirm and recognise the rights of Indigenous groups to have jurisdiction over child and family care services in their communities. The first agreement with the federal government under the law was signed last year by the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan. It gives the First Nation control over child welfare services and whether children are removed from their homes.
The deal announced Tuesday comes several weeks after Canadian courts approved an agreement between the federal government and Indigenous groups to settle-class action lawsuits to compensate First Nations people lacking clean and reliable drinking water on reserves.
The Washington Post
Canada agrees to pay $43.5 billion to its stolen generation
Source: Philippines Alive
