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The Canadian flag is flown upside down in protest of 215 children being buried in an unmarked mass grave at the former Kamloops Indian Boarding School on Canada’s Kanawak Reserve, July 2, 2021. On Saturday, the government agreed to pay $2 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by Aboriginal people over the use of residential schools.File photo courtesy of Andre Pichette/EPA-EFE
January 21 (United Press International) — On Saturday, the Canadian government agreed to pay $2.1 billion to settle a lawsuit seeking damages that enrolls thousands of Indigenous Canadians in residential schools.
The lawsuit, first filed by 325 First Nations in 2012, argues that public schools result in the loss of language and culture in order to assimilate young Indigenous Canadians.
The court must finally approve the terms of the settlement before it can be paid to a nonprofit trust created independently of the government, the bbc reports.
If approved, it would be the fifth major reparations payment since 2006, New York Times reports. Including Saturday’s deal, the government has paid out about $7.5 billion.
The plaintiffs allege the government-funded schools physically, sexually and emotionally abused Aboriginal children and forcibly removed them from their families from the 1800s until the 1970s. Survivors said the school was also dilapidated, poorly heated and unsanitary.
Shane Gottfriedson, a former chief of the Tk’emlups Nation and regional head of British Columbia for the Assembly of First Nations, said Saturday it’s a fight with the government to resolve the allegations.
“This is the beginning of a new era for Canada for our people,” he said at an event announcing the agreement.
Crown and Indigenous Relations Minister Mark Miller said the agreement did not “erase or make up for the past”.
“What it can do is address the collective harm Canada has done in the past.”
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