Editors --- "Indian Residential Schools Settlement (Canada) - Digest" [2007] AUIndigLawRw 30; (2007) 11(1) Australian Indigenous Law Review 139

• Indian Residential Schools Settlement (Canada)

Indian Residential Schools Settlement (Canada)

Final court approval March 21 2007

The Indian Residential Schools Settlement (‘the Settlement Agreement’) is an agreement that has been reached between the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and the Canadian Government. Its approval by the Courts in March 2007 follows the unprecedented ‘Agreement in Principle’ signed in 2005 between the Canadian government, plaintiffs representatives, the AFN and Churches.

The backdrop of the Settlement Agreement includes the Canadian Statement of Reconciliation of 1988 that acknowledged and expressed profound regret and sorrow for the residential schools system and the sexual and physical abuse of Aboriginal children under this system. It also includes the successful litigation of the Aboriginal Canadian survivors of residential schools, whose previous claims of negligence, assault, breach of fiduciary duty and vicarious liability had been upheld by Canadian courts, and whose future legal claims had threatened to overwhelm the Canadian court system.

The settlement includes financial compensation to the individual survivors of the residential schools, funding for healing programs and the future establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is estimated that there are 80,000 people alive who will need to now be contacted regarding their opinions under the Settlement Agreement.

The Settlement Agreement provides:

• At least $1.9 billion dollars for ‘common experience’ payments to be made to former students of the schools;
• A process to allow those students who suffered sexual or serious physical or physchological abuse to receive individual payments of between $5,000 and $275,000, or more for those who can show loss of income; and
• A further $125 million for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, $60 million towards the documentation of the experiences of survivors, and $209 million for national and community commemorative projects.

Survivors will now be contacted through community forums and gatherings in the six-month time frame the courts have agreed to set in place to ensure that survivors may properly consider the Agreement. Survivors of the residential schools will have the final say on whether they choose to accept the historic Settlement Agreement.

Full details of the Settlement are available on the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement - Official Court Website:

<http://www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca/> .