Compensation Expected by 2008 for Abuse at Residential Schools
By Steve Bruce
Chronicle Herald [Canada]
February 7, 2007
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/557664.html
Mi'kmaq Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy says he has a selective memory when it comes to the four years he spent at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School as a youngster.
"There's what I want to remember and what I don't want to remember," the 65-year-old resident of the Waycobah reserve in Cape Breton said Tuesday.
"Even today, I can black out the bad things and just remember the good comradeship I had with the boys, the play fighting and stuff like that."
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| Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy talks about his days at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. He was in Dartmouth on Tuesday for an information session on a lawsuit seeking compensation. Photo by ERIC WYNNE / Staff |
Mr. Sylliboy was in Dartmouth on Tuesday for an Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs information session on a class-action lawsuit seeking federal compensation for as many as 80,000 former aboriginal residential school students across Canada.
Courts across the country last year approved a settlement to the suit that will award each survivor of the residential schools a "common experience payment" of $10,000 for the first year spent at a school and $3,000 for each additional year.
Natives who suffered sexual or serious physical abuse at the schools, which were staffed by nuns and priests, will be eligible for additional compensation through an independent assessment process.
Nine judges from across Canada will gather in a Calgary courtroom, possibly as early as next month, to formally approve the settlement agreement.
The goal is for Ottawa to begin accepting applications for compensation in November, according to Gina Wilson, the assistant deputy minister of Indian Residential Schools Canada.
"It's feasible that some people may see their money before Christmas, but more likely it will be in the spring of 2008," said Ms. Wilson, who took part in Tuesday's session.
The Atlantic Policy Congress estimates that 1,000 to 1,200 native children attended the Shubenacadie school between 1930 and 1967, when it closed.
While the majority of those children were uprooted from their homes and forced to go to the school by the government, Mr. Sylliboy and his two sisters were sent to Shubenacadie by their father after their mother was hospitalized with tuberculosis.
"My father had to work so he couldn't look after us," said Mr. Sylliboy, who was seven when he arrived at Shubenacadie.
"At that time, they thought it was proper to be looked after by the nuns and the priests. They thought we were going to a safe place."
But beatings discouraged the children from speaking Mi'kmaq, Mr. Sylliboy said. They also were sent outdoors for prolonged periods of time, regardless of the weather or how the children were feeling.
"I remember one time I had an upset stomach so I pounded on the door but they wouldn't let me back in," Mr. Sylliboy said. "So I had to dirty myself outdoors."
Because of his family's situation back home in Wacobah, Mr. Sylliboy and his sisters had to stay at the school through the summer months as well.
"The hardest part was I wasn't able to talk to my sisters," he said. "You could see them on the other side (of the school) but you weren't allowed even to wave to them."
Mr. Sylliboy was diagnosed with TB shortly after leaving the school and spent the next three years in sanatoriums in Glace Bay, Kentville and Point Edward. By the time he finally returned home, he had forgotten how to speak Mi'kmaq.
Fortunately, surrounded by his native tongue on the reserve, Mr. Sylliboy's grasp of the Mi'kmaq language gradually returned and he still speaks it today. "It's one thing I got back — my language — and nobody's going to take that away from me again."
Mr. Sylliboy said he will take care of the roughly $20,000 he stands to receive in compensation.
"I just plan to put it in the bank," he said. "When I came out of the (sanatorium), I tried to stand on my own two feet. I didn't look to Indian Affairs for welfare.
"I've been married 37 years and I've never got a welfare cheque."
Violet Paul, a senior policy analyst with the Atlantic Policy Congress, said discussions are underway to help First Nations communities avoid the problems associated with influxes of cash.
She said some residential school survivors are worried that they will be victimized all over again — this time by money-hungry thieves or relatives.
"A lot of elders don't keep their money in the bank," Ms. Paul said.
"They have a tendency to keep it at home in their dresser or underneath their (mattress). So there's a higher chance of being robbed or of their children taking advantage of them."
E-mail: sbruce@herald.ca
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