CANADA
Edmonton Sun
By BROOKES MERRITT, EDMONTON SUN
Former students of notoriously abusive residential schools for aboriginal children are leery of Paul Martin's $4-billion compensation promise, and wonder if it's just pre-election posturing.
And they worry the federal package might overshadow the other guilty parties in this whole ordeal - the churches who ran the schools.
The package is expected to provide any child who attended a residential school - whether or not they were the victim of sexual or physical abuse - with $10,000 for their first year at the school, and $3,000 for every year after that.
"No amount of money can bring back what was taken from us," said Mel Buffalo, head of the Indian Association of Alberta.