Author: Greg Weston
Publication: Ottawa Sun
Date: November 24, 2005
URL: http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2005/11/24/1320390.html
For four days and nights, a small army of attorneys virtually barricaded themselves in the 27th-floor boardroom of a Toronto law firm, determined to negotiate an end to one of the most shameful chapters in Canada's history.
Finally, last Saturday afternoon, a deal was inked to provide up to $3 billion in mainly federal compensation to the former students of Indian residential schools.
Among all of Canada's many misguided exercises in social engineering, probably none did so much harm to so many children as did the church-run hell-holes for Native kids.
For almost a century, Native children were taken from their villages with the blessing of the federal government, to be raised in church-run schools, far from home for years.
By the time the last of these wretched institutions was shut down in the early 1970s, their legacy of cultural annihilation, physical beatings and horrendous sexual abuse was etched in the ruined lives of generations of aboriginal people across the country.
Over the past decade, a wave of victim lawsuits began to swamp the federal government and the various churches involved in this sorry saga.
In response, successive Liberal administrations have poured close to $1 billion down the drain just in the past nine years, most of it on lawyers and bureaucracy, and relatively little on actual compensation.
Finally, a $12-billion class-action lawsuit against the feds last year pushed all parties to the bargaining table, and ultimately to a deal.
It is pure coincidence, of course, that the agreement struck last weekend comes on the eve of both a federal election and today's aboriginal summit of first ministers in B.C.
The deal means Paul Martin will arrive at today's gathering in Kelowna to thundering approval from Native leaders (even before he drops what is expected to be another $4 billion in their laps for other aboriginal programs).
Under the agreement, the federal government will provide a total of about $1.9 billion in compensation to the estimated 80,000 former residential school victims who are still alive.
This is not an issue of physical or sexual abuse -- everyone who attended a residential school will get a government cheque averaging $24,000. No questions asked.
In addition, the deal allows those who do have claims of abuse to collect their $24,000 and still go after the feds for additional compensation for their suffering at the hands of school pedophiles.
Government officials admit they have no idea how much all that could cost taxpayers, but one lawyer involved in the agreement estimates the additional tab could hit $1 billion.
And what of the churches responsible for the offending pedophiles and other serial abusers?
One Supreme Court ruling established that the churches should bear about a quarter of the liability in residential school abuse cases -- a bill that could easily have topped $500 million.
But under the deal struck over the weekend, the government is agreeing to protect the churches from all ongoing and future legal actions by abuse victims.
In return, government officials say the Anglican church has agreed to chip in about $25 million, and the Presbyterians about $3 million.
But it is the Catholic church which got the heavenly part of this deal.
Having run almost 70% of the residential schools at issue, Catholic organizations could have been on the hook for at least $350 million of the latest deal.
Instead, under the agreement, the church has to provide $25 million of "in-kind" services for aboriginal healing, and has agreed to try to raise another $25 million for "reconciliation" programs.
Finally, the 41 Catholic groups involved in the deal have also pledged $29 million to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation "as it may be requested."
The foundation is one of the dozen secretive money pits created by the Liberals beyond the prying eyes of Access to Information laws and even the auditor general.
Oh, I almost forgot the lawyers.
The government has agreed to pay the lawyers for the aboriginal school victims a cool $80 million.