"How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong look like right."

Black Hawk, Sauk

Gentle Readers, if you read this page to the end, and stay in the moment while doing so, you are to be congratulated. Thunderbird knows it is difficult to believe that Canada a western democratic nation of such rich cultural diversity, a nation of highly respected global peacekeepers, carries shame and prejudice of this magnitude towards thousands and thousands of its own citizens and continues to do so. Please understand that the assimilation of Native people into mainstream Canada is never off the political agenda.

Thunderbird sings you an honour song commending your bravery, compassion and willingness to honour her Grandmother in wanting to know what happened so that it can never happen again.

If this page causes any trauma to those Indigenous persons who survived a residential school, there is a crisis line number that you can call, 1-866-925-4419. May Your Spirits Be Strong.

"Residential School survivors made a choice to save their own lives; probably the bravest thing one person could do. Sometimes events, like the horrors of residential school are imposed; the choice occurs when the individual decides to live or not."

Gandoox, Coast Tsimshian Elder

"You will not give up your idle, roving habits to enable your children to receive instruction. It has therefore been determined that your children shall be sent to schools where they will forget their Indian habits and be instructed in all the necessary arts of civilized life and become one with your white brethren." (Indian Superintendent, P.G. Anderson, 1846,
Sing The Brave Song, J. Ennamorato, pg. 53.)

"If these schools are to succeed, we must not have them near the bands; in order to educate the children properly we must separate them from their families. Some people may say that this is hard, but if we want to civilize them we must do that."

(A federal cabinet minister, 1883, in J.R. Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A HIstory of Indian-White Relations in Canada, 1989, pg. 298.

"Duncan Campbell Scott, Head of Indian Affairs took a romantic interest in Native traditions, he was after all a poet of some repute (member of the Royal Society of Canada), as well as being an accountant, and a bureaucrat . [An unholy trinity if there ever was one!] He was three people rolled into one confusing and perverse soul. The poet romanticized the whole 'noble savage' theme,  the bureaucrat lamented our inability to become civilized, the accountant refused to provide funds for the so-called civilization process. In other words, he disdained all ‘living’ Natives but "extolled the freedom of the savages."
(Accounting for Genocide, Dean Neu & Richard Therrien, pg. 89).

In 1920 Scott said, "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed. They are a weird and waning race...ready to break out at any moment in savage dances; in wild and desperate orgies."

"Scott saw himself as Canada's Kipling. Perhaps he shared Kipling's vices, but not his brilliance or his irony; for Scott, natives were indeed lesser breeds without the law. His writing admired in their day now seem so much Edwardian bric-a-brac: florid, ponderous, unabashedly bigoted....Most revealing of all is one short line: 'Altruism is absent from the Indian character'. Only someone deeply ignorant, deeply prejudiced, or both could have written that." 
(Ronald White, Stolen Continents, pg. 321).

THE WAY IT USED TO BE

"The traditional way of education was by example, experience, and storytelling. The first principle involved was total respect and acceptance of the one to be taught, and that learning was a continuous process from birth to death. It was total continuity without interruption. Its nature was like a fountain that gives many colours and flavours of water and that whoever chose could drink as much or as little as they wanted to whenever they wished. The teaching strictly adhered to the sacredness of life whether of humans, animals or plants." 
(Art Solomon, Ojibwe Elder, Residential School Survivor)

"Taking into consideration the high cost of assimilation through education, and deciding the process was too lengthy and expensive to continue, the government failed to provide adequate funds to fulfill the treaty promises. The omission resulted in heated debates between the Church and State over who would fund the construction and operation of Indian schools. Canada’s government and various churches, which by now were tiring of Indians, schools and their government partners, agreed on financial contracts. Since the missionaries were still the cheapest educators in the country, Indian education remained in their hands for almost 100 years following the signing of treaties." 
(J. Ennamorato, Sing The Brave Song)

WHAT NATIVE LEADERS WANTED: The setting up of residential schools was to say the least a clash of two cultures. Whereas a number of Chiefs wanted white education for their children, their reasons differed dramatically from the government’s reasons. They wanted European education so that their children would be able to survive in a rapidly changing new world. 

Native leaders were firm in not wanting to assimilate their children into white culture in order to receive that education; nor was the intent to surrender their lands and to deliver their children into forcible confinement far away from their families and traditional cultures their goal. 

In other words, they made it very clear they desired only education for their offspring, not a fundamental change in their way of life. Native people were victims; they did not willingly agree to Canada's deeply oppressive apartheid policies against its First Citizens. They did not willingly agree to Indian Agents luring their children away with promises of rides in planes. Who in their right mind would??   

For decades, the appalling lie that Native Leaders demanded the residential schools for their children was perpetuated. In other words, Church and State tried their best to "spin-doctor" their involvement by trying to place the responsibility for the debacle squarely on the shoulders of Indigenous leaders.

All Native leaders wanted was education for their offspring, not a fundamental change in their way of life. 

WHAT NATIVE PEOPLE GOT:  The wishes of Native leaders were ignored and the exact opposite occurred. A misguided Church and State led by Canada's extremely racist government leaders, endeavouring to civilize the 'savages' in the ways of the Europeans, combined to create a diabolical set of circumstances that from the outset were doomed to failure. Poorly paid and morally bankrupt student teachers and missionaries, who were at best barely functional illiterates, were put in charge of educating Native children.  

In fact, thousands of children between 1880-1988 were exposed to kidnapping, unimaginable physical and sexual abuse, starvation and virtual slavery that until recently had been Canada's dirty little secret. The Residential School debacle reached its zenith in 1931 (see time line below). The savagery, however, continued for decades leaving physical, emotional, mental and spiritual scars that reverberate to this day. 

As a direct result of this horror, at the present time, alcohol and drug abuse among Native people is five times the national average; sexual and family abuse eight times the national average; suicide rate among Native teens five times the national average. 

"Sometimes my tears were brought on by desperate longings to be home. At other times, I cried because of Sister Superior's sadistic punishments which she arbitrarily inflicted on those of us who 'spoke out of turn...,or showed disrespect...by asking for proof of the existence [of God[....And on other occasions, I cried because I was terrified by the footsteps that regularly crept up the fire escape to our dorm. Those nights I'd jump in bed with my sister, Carla. As we clung to one another for protections, we'd hear frantic whisperings, and moaning over top of crying. Years later I became convinced that poor little girls were being sexual victimized."
(Anishinaabe, Janice Acoose and her memories of her time at Oblates Of Mary Immaculate's Cowessess' Indian residential school in Qu'Appelle Valley north of Regina. From Sing the Brave Song, J. Ennamorato, pg. 162)

SEE TIME LINE BELOW

The four main churches responsible for this debacle had a variety of things in common when it came to the infrastructure of the prisons.

"All aspects of First Nations culture were eliminated from the schools. Children were forbidden to speak their native language and were punished for doing so.

Boys were segregated from girls, and siblings were intentionally separated in an effort to weaken family ties.

Children were required to wear school uniforms instead of traditional clothing. Hairstyles were cut short in European style. The children ate primarily Euro-Canadian food." (if they ate at all).
John Roberts, First Nations, Inuit and Metis People, pg. 120)

It was not the intent to scholastically educate the children, but, rather, teach them menial tasks so they could potentially acquire positions as scivvies, maids, labourers. Therefore, upon release most children were lucky if they achieved barely a Grade 5-6 education. Also, during summer breaks or other so-called vacations, children were forced to billet with white families "in order to prevent them from renewing cultural connections with their families." (Roberts, Ibid,)

"Indians sometimes think that if government authorities became convinced they could solve the Indian problem by purchasing gallons of white paint and painting all of us white, they would not hesitate to try. In fact, the government’s education policy almost seems aimed in that direction. Indians recognize that education is one of the major tools that will help us strike off the shackles of poverty and, incidentally, the tyranny of government direction. But the white man apparently believes that education is a tool for the implementation of his design of assimilation." 
(Cardinal, Harold, The Unjust Society, pg.51)

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem...Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian department."  
(Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1913-1932)

Nicholas Flood Davin Report of 1879 noted that "the industrial school is the principal feature of the policy known as that of 'aggressive civilization'....Indian culture is a contradiction in terms...they are uncivilized...the aim of education is to destroy the Indian."

"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem."
(Duncan Campbell Scott)

"The federal government and the churches - Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian -- applied to their 'Indian Problem' the instrument of education...which...focused on labour skills...."
(The Healing Update Has Begun from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, May 2002)

Children were kidnapped and taken long distances from their communities in order to attend school. Once there, they were held captive, isolated from their families of origin, and forcibly stripped of their language, religion, traditions and culture. Many Native children grew up with little knowledge of their original culture. Being forced to live with no culture resulted in high suicide rates, difficulties with parenting, drug and alcohol problems, family abuse.

"Then there are testimonies of hundreds of former students whose list of abuses includes kidnapping, sexual abuse, beatings, needles pushed through tongues as punishment for speaking Indigenous languages, forced wearing of soiled underwear on the head or wet bed sheets on the body, faces rubbed in human excrement, forced eating of rotten and/or maggot infested food, being stripped naked and ridiculed in front of other students, forced to stand upright for several hours -- on two feet and sometimes one -- until collapsing, immersion in ice water, hair ripped from heads, use of students in eugenics and medical experiments, bondage and confinement in closets without food or water, application of electric shocks, forced to sleep outside or to walk barefoot in winter, forced labour and on and on." 

(The Healing Update Has Begun, from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, May 2002)

The abuse of Native children was so widespread, over such a long period of time, that as the timeline shows, Canada's attempts to eliminate Native Nations is now embedded in the general history of the country. Payments as a result of class-action lawsuits for these atrocities against an innocent people could exceed the billion dollar mark for both States and Churches.  

Money, however, can never make up for the incalculable cost in human life, emotional, physical, mental and spiritual suffering and loss of Indigenous cultural knowledge and practices.

Prior to 1840's

The residential school had been contrived specifically to enable missionaries to meddle with the character formation and identity of Native children even though the parents had stressed repeatedly that they wanted education, not assimilation.

Bagot Commission set up in 1842 by Governor Sir Charles Bagot

"The Bagot Commission began the formulations that brought forward the assimilative policy and eventually the residential school system. The central rationale of the Commission's findings was that further progress by communities would be realized only if the civilizing system was amended to imbue Aboriginal people with the primarily characteristics of civilization: industry and knowledge." Milloy, pg. 13.

1844

1844

Ryerson believed that "Indians were best suited to being working farmers and agricultural labourers." (Milloy, pg. 16)

1840's

1947

A 1947 report commissioned by Indian Affairs and penned by Egerton Ryerson, Father of public education in Ontario would form the basis for future directions in policy for Indian education and how the residential schools were to be run in Ontario:

"There is a need to raise the Indians to the level of the whites...and take control of land out of Indians hands. The Indian must remain under the control of the Federal Crown rather than provincial authority, that effort to Christianize the Indians and settle them in communities be continued,....that schools, preferably manual labour ones, be established under the guidance of missionaries....Their education must consist not merely training of the mind, but of a weaning from the habits and feelings of their ancestors, and the acquirements of the language, art and customs of civilized life."

1857

Gradual Civilization Act   applied to all Indians in the Province of Canada; they were an affirmation of legislative control over Indians. The legislation stated it was shouldering the responsibility and authority to define who was an Indian as a preliminary to making it feasible for the Indian to cease being an Indian. Part of the process was forcing Native children into government-run schools.

1876

The Indian Act gave further responsibility to the federal government for Native education.

1883

1879

There was considerable denominational rivalry among the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. One Anglican referred to the Ojibwa as biased: "Their prejudices are so much warped in favour of the Catholics....they received the crucifix, beads and other mummeries...[and] instead of the gospel...they pray in the same manner as they formerly did to their medicine bags."  (J. Ennamorato, Sing the Brave Song, Pg. 73)

Mid- 1880s

REMOVING Native children from the home and villages to be instructed in Christianity is now well established. More often than not children were kidnapped without the knowledge of the parents. The bulk of the so-called educational experience in the schools, however, was manual labour rather than scholastic. Children worked mostly in the fields, laundries or shops (a concept borrowed from the United States Residential School system) and barely had a grade six education by the time they were released.

Sexual perversions of the most heinous kinds at the hands of priests and nuns were commonplace, spiritually and emotionally damaging generations of Native children. We are still paying for these atrocities to the present day with family and substance abuse five times the national average.

1892

An order-in-council was passed in 1892 announcing the regulations for the operation of residential schools. It set up a grant arrangement stating that the government would give $110-$145 per student per year to the church-run schools and $72 per student in the day schools. Little of this money actually went into hiring competent, compassionate and literate teachers.

1910

Ontario Public School History of Canada: "All Indians were superstitious, having strange ideas about nature. They thought that birds, beasts....were like men. Thus an Indian has been known to make a long speech of apology to a wounded bear. Such were the people whom the pioneers of our own race found lording it over the North American continent – this untamed savage of the forest who could not bring himself to submit to the restraints of European life."

1914-1918

1931

Note: Many residential schools were built on flat land and in remote areas (prairies) making escape difficult; children could be seen for miles, hunted down and brought back by the Indian Agents.

1940's

8,000 Indian children, half the student population were enrolled in seventy-six residential schools across the country. In 1930, three-quarters of Indian students were in grades one to three, and only three in every hundred students progressed past grade six.

Students were discouraged by school officials to go on to higher grades and were often ordered out of the school by age sixteen. At a residential school in northwestern Ontario, a federal inspector admonished the administrator for offering grades nine, by saying, "If we let the Indian people go to grade nine then they’ll want to go to grade ten, and then they’ll want to go to university, that’s what we don’t want."

Education of Girls

Late 1950's

1990

1993

1990's

"Government and Church organizations, including the St. Paul Diocese, are facing up to $195 million in damages in lawsuits filed on behalf of 230 former Native students of the Blue Quills Residential School.

The suit also names the Oblates, the Grey Nuns, the Attorney General of Canada and the Roman Catholic Church as defendants. It alleges that the Native people suffered abuse and, "brutal, inhumane and cruel treatment" while they were students at the school in St. Paul.

While many of the allegations contained in the court documents are of a general nature, more than 20 individuals, both lay and religious, are named in connection with specific allegations." By Jay Charland, Staff Writer Edmonton.

1993 - 
August 8

APOLOGY

Anglican Archbishop Michael Peers tells nearly 150 Native people gathered for the Anglican Church's second National Native Convocation that he apologizes for residential school atrocities committed by the Church and for the "pain and hurt" experienced in church-run residential schools. "I have felt shame and humiliation as I have heard of suffering inflicted by my people, and as I think of the part our church played in that suffering." The apology was accepted by Native Elders.

1996

The Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal People is released. It is a far-reaching, comprehensive message of reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Part of the breakdown in this relationship, is described in the RCAP report as the cultural superiority and policy of assimilation that finds expression in the Indian Residential Schools. The report is a sweeping condemnation of the attitudes and behaviour of the federal government. It suggests major reforms which to this day have been largely ignored by the Federal Government.

Very little of this report was acted on despite intense lobbying by Native groups.

January 8, 1998

'Apology' by Canadian Government

10 July 1999 - Front page of the Globe and Mail, Erin Anderssen, Reporter

Lawyers swoop to cash in on native claims

Leaders worry the suffering of residential-school victims is exploited by fees as high as 40 per cent of awards

Article is about how "Residential-school claims have become a burgeoning industry for Canada's legal profession, with a lot of money to be made" specifically the article deals with the Peigan First Nation... the article continues on A7 under the title: "Some lawyers cashing in, native say", the article says that the Law Society of Saskatchewan has passed a new ruling

"...that prevents its members from holding meetings in communities unless they are invited by prospective clients, and requires them to mark all documents sent to solicit business as "advertising material." ... and forbids lawyers to settle fee arrangements until they meet with each client"

2002 - March - "They are waiting for us to die."

Gabe Mentuck, 73, said his claim has dragged on for six years and he charged the government is "just waiting for us to die." He is claiming compensation for abuse that occurred at the Pine Creek Residential School in northern Manitoba in the 1940s.

2006

Note: the recent apology by Prime Minister Harper to the Chinese Canadians (June 22, 2006) as a result of the racist head-tax imposed on them was timed when there are so very few survivors left. The head-tax was levied against almost 9,000 Chinese, now there are less than 20 still alive.  One cannot help but conclude that much the same cynicism is being levied against Native residential school survivors.

2007

INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT (INRSSA)

This was the largest class action case in Canada's History. The Settlement Agreement received Court approval on March 21, 2007 with the full support of all parties involved: Government of Canada, Legal Counsel for former students; Legal Counsel for Churches, and the Assembly of First Nations. For details keep reading.

The four Christian denominations primarily involved with residential schools have different internal organizations. In theory:

Anglican Church of Canada: Each Anglican diocese 'is separately incorporated and is not legally responsible for the obligations of any other diocese." Thus, the individual diocese is solely responsible for any abuse at schools that it operated.

Presbyterian Church in Canada: From a legal standpoint, the schools were run by offices which were part of the national church body.

Roman Catholic Church: The Roman Catholic Church does not exist as a legal entity; only its diocese do. Again, each diocese is liable for abuse at its schools. However, most of the residential schools were operated by the Oblates and other similar church orders. The latter were separately incorporated, and would be responsible for any liabilities at their schools. Needlesstosay, lawsuits against the Catholic Church are complicated.

United Church of Canada: The schools were mainly operated by the Board of Home Missions and the Women's Missionary Society. These are integral parts of a single incorporated legal entity, The United Church of Canada, which is legal liable for abuse at its schools.

Thus, in theory, individual Anglican and Catholic dioceses, and individual Catholic orders are in the most exposed financial situation. Even a small number of abuse claims could force some of them in to bankruptcy, unless the government steps in with funding.

(Other churches:  Methodist)

Interesting Note: The Presbyterian Church is named in fewer than two percent of the 12,000 outstanding claims. The United Church is named in eight percent, the Anglican Church in approximately eighteen percent and the Roman Catholic Church in 72 percent.

May 28, 2000 - Archbishop Michael Peers issues a pastoral letter: "Resulting from abuse in the residential schools there are over 1,600 claims of varying kinds brought against the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. About one hundred cases involve proven abuse of children, with the perpetrators given prison sentences. The costs of litigation and settlements for these alone is sufficient to exhaust all the assets of the General Synod and of some dioceses involved." The Anglican Church may have to declare bankruptcy. Not going to happen as a result of a deal struck between the Church and the State which limites the amount of compensation to survivors!

March, 2001 - Federal government names The General Synod of the Anglican Church by third party action in 386 residential school cases. Similarly, the government also involves a number of Roman Catholic dioceses in residential school abuse trials, even though residential schools were operated by separately incorporated Orders within the church.

August, 2001 - Assembly of First Nations Chief Matthew Coon Come attended the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in South Africa. He embarrassed the Canadian government by telling delegates of the hundreds of years of suffering Native people have experienced at the hands of the Canadian government. Unrepentant Coon Come says, "I was not there to paint a rosy picture. That is not my job." Six weeks later, in retaliation, DIAND Minister, Robert Nault slashed the AFNs budget from twenty-one million dollars to ten million dollars, causing the layoff of over seventy employees. Matthew Coon Come is no longer a hero to the federal liberals.

2002 - The Presbyterian Church and the federal government have agreed to terms that limit the church's liability for residential lawsuits to $2.1 million. The agreement paves the way for settling outstanding claims by former students who were abused. 

August 8, 1993 - Archbishop Michael Peers apologizes to nearly 150 Native people gathered for the Anglican Church's second National Native Convocation for residential school atrocities committed by the Church and for the "pain and hurt" experienced in church-run residential schools. "I have felt shame and humiliation as I have heard of suffering inflicted by my people, and as I think of the part our church played in that suffering." The apology was accepted by a Native Elder.

August 27, 1998 - The Right Reverend Bill Phipps, Moderator of The United Church of Canada reads an apology directed to former students of United Church Indian Residential Schools, their families and communities. It says, in part: "As Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry."

To little, too late?  The lawsuits that threaten to cripple a
a number of the churches are winding their way through the
courts.

The Canadian Government through the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs apologized to the country's 1.5 million Indigenous people for decades of mistreatment that include attempts to stamp out Native culture and assimilate Indians and mixed race people. Minister of Indian Affairs Jane Stewart reads a ''Statement of Reconciliation'' that acknowledges the damage done to the Native population - including the hanging of Louis Riel after he led a rebellion of Indian and mixed-race people in western Canada in 1885. The government apology stops short of pardoning Riel, something Indigenous leaders have demanded for decades. Stewart does, however, apologize for the government's assimilation policies.

''Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority led to a suppression of aboriginal culture and values," she says. ''As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in weakening the identity of aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and cultures, and outlawing spiritual practices.

We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self-sustaining nations that were dis-aggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory, by the relocation of aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act. The time has come to state formally that the days of paternalism and disrespect are behind us and we are committed to changing the nature of the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in Canada.''

A $350 million dollar Healing Fund is created. Most First Nations do not believed that this sum is anywhere close to compensating them for the damage to Native societies; the money does not include off-reserve Natives, Inuit or Métis. To date little of the money has found its way into the hands of the survivors.

NOTE: Although it was referred to as Canada Apologizes, the apology was not given by the chief representative of the government, the Prime Minister. This is significant. If he had, it would have been an admission of culpability and the lawsuit settlements would have skyrocketed. Money? The hearts and healing of the Original People? Money? The hearts and healing of the Original People?  - Money won.

WASHINGTON APOLOGIZES
September 9, 2000

"The head of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs formally apologized yesterday for the agency's "legacy of racism and inhumanity" that included massacres, relocations and the destruction of Indian languages and cultures.

‘By accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right," Kevin Over, a Pawnee Indian, said in an emotional speech marking the agency's 175th anniversary.

With tears in his eyes, Mr. Over apologized on behalf of the BIA, but not the federal government as a whole. He is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to make such a statement regarding the treatment of American Indians. "This agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the Western tribes," he said. "This agency set out to destroy all things Indian. The legacy of these misdeeds haunts us."

The President did not apologize, and in terms of cold hard cash resulting from lawsuits this is also significant.

One can only wonder if such a dismissive attitude is working for the Jews or Stalin's Russians or the Rawandans?  (close to thirty million human beings were slaughtered in these three historical periods!)

There are almost 95,000 former residential students alive today - the last school closed in 1990, therefore the abuses were not confined to the last century but well into the life-times of the gentle readers of this web site!  

Racist and assimilationist policies are still alive on the agenda of the federal government. The healing will not begin in earnest until Native people, the church and state start operating with the same understandings and the same agenda.   

If one employs the Ethic of Non-Interference, it is no one's business as to the timing of an individual healing. It is appalling to even suggest it. Obviously, when things like this are said it is an attempt assuage the consciences of the guilty in the opes it will all simply go away.

This was the largest class action case in Canada's History. The Settlement Agreement received Court approval on March 21, 2007 with the full support of all parties involved: Government of Canada, Legal Counsel for former students; Legal Counsel for Churches, and the Assembly of First Nations.

The opt-out period ran for 150 days ensuring that those affected by the INRSSA were informed of the components of the Agreement and how their legal rights may be affected. Approximately 340 former students opted out.

Implementation began September 19, 2007 and includes the following:

• Common Experience Payment (CEP) to be paid to all eligible former students who resided at a recognized Residential School. This is a lump sum payment that recognizes the Residential School experience resulted in loss of culture, language, etc. Upon verification each person will receive $10,000 for the first year or part thereof and an additional $3,000.00 for each subsequent year or partial thereof. Average payment is estimated to be $28,000.  Former Students can submit applications: to a centralized processing centre; to receive the application packaged, call: 1-866-699-1742; TTY 1-800-926-9105. Payment can be by cheque or direct deposit. Former students DO NOT NEED copies of their school records to apply for the CEP.

• Independent Assessment Process (IAP) is an adjudicative process which provides individuals with compensation for sexual and physical abuse. legal advice is recommended before proceeding. $960 million has been allocated to pay for claims settled under IAP. Maximum payment is $275,000. Actual income loss may be compensated up to a maximum of $250,000. IMPORTANT NOTE: Former students can apply for both IAP and CEP.

• Establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

• Indian Residential Support Health System is a $96 million to support emotional health and wellness services. If eligible to receive CEP, you are eligible for the health services which includes the following: Professional counselling services; Assistance with cost of transportation to counselling services and/or Elders not in home community; Emotional support provided by Resolution Health Support Workers; Cultural support provided by Elders.

• The list of one hundred and thirty (130) recognized Residential Schools is available at: www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca

• If a residential school is not on the list it may be added if it meets the criteria.

NOTE: The first payment was made to Mary Moonias, a teacher from the Louis Bull First Nation in Alberta on October 4, 2007.

She spent ten years in a residential school.

Upon receiving the payment she said:  "Let's celebrate that were here, that we survived . Let's learn to talk about our pain and move on. I want my people to move on."

This legal conclusion, perhaps, opens the way for an official apology from the Prime Minister - the wait continues.

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