Legacy
Justice
29. We call upon the parties and, in particular, the federal government, to work collaboratively with plaintiffs not included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to have disputed legal issues determined expeditiously on an agreed set of facts.
The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement is the largest class action settlement in Canadian history, and was set up to compensate former residential school students and help them recover from their experiences; however, there have been some significant exclusions in this Agreement.
Students of Indian Day Schools, which were operated separately from residential schools - but had the same detrimental effects - were, up until recently, excluded from the Settlement Agreement.
Since Newfoundland wasn't technically part of Canada until 1949, the Harper government refused to take responsibility for the residential school experience in Newfoundland and Labrador and therefore didn't consider itself responsible for compensating survivors. In 2016, survivors of some of these boarding schools did receive a settlement, and Justin Trudeau formally apologized to them in 2017.
Finally, Métis residential school survivors are excluded, and their own concerns have yet to be resolved. Similarly, Métis people are also excluded from the Sixties Scoop settlement, as there are no records to identify Métis during that time - perhaps this same "rationale" is being used with regards to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Beyond 94 gives more of a breakdown on how we're doing with this particular Call.
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