In the next few months, compensation cheques for former First
Nation students who attended residential schools will start to roll into the
Mount Currie community as part of the Canada-wide Indian Residential School
Settlement Agreement.
But for many former students, the settlement represents much
more than money in the bank.
Some see it as closure to the horrific experiences they endured
at these schools, which were run by churches and funded by the federal
government from 1870 to the mid-1970s to “take the Indian out of the Indian”,
as former grand chief Matthew Coon Come once said. For others, the settlement
has resurrected memories of physical and sexual abuse that have been suppressed
for decades.
“Some of them came and sat in my office and in 20 seconds they
were just in tears,
because it is something more to
them than just a piece of paper,”
said
Frank Wallace, a drug and alcohol counsellor in Mount Currie who has been
working with many former students on the settlement applications.
“It is a scary thing for them to finally let it out of the bag.
We have to be very aware that they are very sensitive in dealing with it. And
we have to deal with them the best we know how to get them to start to live
today without having to cry every night or sit at home worried,” he said.
The Indian Residential School Settlement is the largest class
action settlement in Canadian history. It involves $1.9 billion that the
government is making available in lump-sum payments to former students in
recognition of the horrific experiences endured while attending these schools.
Each survivor who applies will receive $10,000 for the first
year they attended, and $3,000 for every subsequent year. The average payment
is expected to be around $28,000.
Wallace, who also attended a residential school, said prior to
the agreement most survivors did not openly talk about their experiences.
“They’ve told family members or friends briefly, okay. But when
questioned somewhat, they say, ‘Oh I told my brother,’ or ‘I told my husband’.
That was it. And nothing more was said. Because they just don’t want anybody
else to know,” said Wallace.
“They are reluctant to come into my office, because they don’t
want to be heard. They don’t want their story out there. But some of them have
come forward and told their stories of their sexual abuse and other traumas,”
he said, adding that some survivors are too afraid to fill out the paper work.
He said many survivors still harbour fears that the church will
come after them, or they view Mount Currie as a “safe zone” and never leave the
reserve.
Sharon Thira, executive director of the Indian Residential School
Survivor Society, said it is common for survivors to suffer from post-traumatic
stress.
“With post-dramatic stress disorder, you expect to see somebody
who can’t forget their residential school experience. They have reoccurring
memories of what happened. And so these memories impact them on a day-to-day
basis. It makes it impossible for them to function sometimes,” said Thira.
She said many survivors also experience hyper vigilance, where
they are constantly on watch for some kind of danger, and as a result are very
agitated.
“And then there are people who avoid anything to do with
residential schools. And there are some people who are absolutely numb,” she
explained.
Part of the settlement includes funding for programs to help
survivors heal from the horrors of their past, including $125 million going to
healing programs, $95 million into health support programs, and $20 million for
commemoration activities. Spouses, parents, siblings, children, and
grandchildren of survivors are all eligible to participate in these programs.
Thira added that preliminary numbers from Indian Residential
Schools Resolution Canada, the arm of the federal government dealing with
compensation payments, indicate only 400 of the approximate 14,000 former
students in B.C. opted out of the settlement.
“Overwhelmingly, people want to get the money, but many feel
that it is low. However, they also recognize that there won’t be another
settlement coming, so they are happy to have some form of acknowledgement,” she
said.
A majority of those who opted out suffered the most extreme
abuse and trauma and want to sue the federal government and the church instead
of receiving lump-sum payments.
“It is not a perfect settlement. It is by no means going to
address the depth of the residential school experience for many survivors. But
it is an opportunity for survivors to come to terms with what happened. And I
think it is a chance for communities to take a proactive stance,” said Thira.
She added that most survivors are still waiting for the federal
government to issue a formal apology.
Wallace agreed that most survivors in Mount Currie are looking
forward to receiving the common experience payments — which Service
Canada should deliver to the reserve before mid-October.
“Everybody is kind of anxious to get something for what happened to them… It is not enough. But it is something. It is better than nothing, right? To start to move on again and know that we’ll have some other programs to help them through those other things,” he said.