The other $ 20 billion Canadian will go to reform child and family services over the next five years.
“No money can make up for the trauma people suffered”said Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services.
“But these agreements acknowledge to survivors and their families the harm and pain caused by discrimination in funding and services,” he added.
The agreement grew out of lawsuits brought by indigenous families against the Canadian government, and recognizes that “discriminatory financing” of child and family services in indigenous communities caused suffering to those involved.
Despite being less than 8% of those under the age of 14, indigenous people make up more than half of the children in foster care in Canada, according to a 2016 census.
In the past three decades, at least 150,000 indigenous children have been separated from their homes and taken to one of 139 residential schools.
Thousands died, mostly from malnutrition, disease or neglect, in what a truth and reconciliation committee called “cultural genocide” in a 2015 report. Others were physically or sexually abused.
After the discovery of more than 1,200 unmarked graves in these schools, Canada began to absorb the national trauma.
The minister in charge of Indian relations, Marc Miller, called Tuesday’s agreement “the largest arrangement in Canadian history.”
–
