Table of Contents

HEALING THE PAST: ADDRESSING THE LEGACY OF PHYSICAL AND SEXUAL ABUSE IN INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS

• Historical Overview
• Coming to Terms with the Past
• A Framework for the Resolution of Residential Schools Claims
• Acknowledgement and Apology
• Excerpt from the Statement of Reconciliation
• Respect, Engagement and Informed Choice
• Community Initiatives

The Commission's report provides valuable insights to all of those seeking effective and sensitive solutions to cases of abuse of children in institutions. The Commission's conclusions are helpful in regard to the Government of Canada's ongoing work with survivors and the churches, to find responsible, sensitive and fair ways to address the legacy of physical and sexual abuse in Indian residential schools. Redressing the wrongs that occurred in the schools is a necessary first step to healing and reconciliation for both individuals and their communities - a healing process that is essential to break the cycles of abuse and begin to build a strong and healthy foundation so that together we can deal with the challenges of the present and look to the opportunities of the future.

This section of the Government response briefly reviews the history of Canada's Indian residential schools, and reflects on our progress in addressing the legacy of abuse in the schools in light of the Commission's recommendations. Generally, the Commission's emphasis on redress programs negotiated with survivors and on community initiatives as the best means to redress institutional abuse is consistent with Canada's approach to resolving residential school claims.

Historical Overview

The residential school system operated in Canada from before Confederation until the latter part of the twentieth century. Over time, there were 130 Indian residential schools across Canada, located in every province and territory except Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The residential school system grew, in part out of the missionary work of various Christian religious organisations. The Government of Canada began to play a role in the development and administration of the system as early as 1874, to meet its obligation under the Indian Act to provide an education to Aboriginal persons, as well as to further their integration into broader Canadian society. For much of their history, most residential schools were operated in partnership by various religious organizations and the federal government. In 1969, the Government assumed administrative responsibility for the school system, with religious organisations retaining a role in staffing and in the care of children for some years thereafter. Most residential schools had ceased to operate by the mid-1970s, with only seven remaining open into the 1980s. The last federally run residential school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996. Approximately 105,000 persons who attended the schools were counted at the time of the 1991 census (the only census to enquire about residential school attendance).

In recent years, many individuals have come forward with personal and painful stories of physical and sexual abuse in the residential schools. While it is not uncommon to hear some former students speak about positive experiences in these institutions, their stories must be seen in the context of disclosures of abuse, criminal convictions of perpetrators, the findings of various studies such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and now the Law Commission of Canada's report, which tell of the tragic legacy that the residential school system has left with many former students. They, and their communities, continue to deal with issues such as physical and sexual abuse, family violence, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Many Aboriginal people have decided to seek financial compensation for the harms they suffered in residential schools. As of March 2001, more than 7,200 individuals had filed civil claims for compensation against Canada and the various religious denominations that ran the schools. A number of class or representative claims have also been filed.

Coming to Terms with the Past

Over time, the Government of Canada and the churches which operated the schools have come to understand and begin to address the legacy of our past relationship with Aboriginal peoples, including the legacy of physical and sexual abuse at residential schools.

The Government of Canada is determined to work in partnership with churches and survivors to respond in a responsible, fair, and sensitive way to the growing number of claims relating to physical and sexual abuse suffered by Aboriginal persons in residential schools. Indeed, this was a key factor in the Minister of Justice's decision to ask the Law Commission to undertake its work on institutional abuse. Recognizing that, for many, lengthy civil and criminal trials are not ideal processes for responding to victims of physical and sexual abuse in government-funded institutions, the Minister asked the Commission for a report that would identify processes that could best address wrongdoing while affording appropriate remedies and promoting reconciliation, fairness, and healing.

A Framework for the Resolution of Residential Schools Claims

Finding the best way to meet the needs of survivors of institutional abuse in the context of a fair and accountable redress process is a key problem for those seeking effective and sensitive solutions to cases of abuse of children in institutions. By documenting and acknowledging the experiences and perspectives of survivors and their communities, the Commission's report makes an important contribution to the Government's work towards the resolution of residential schools claims. In the three years since the Commission began its examination of this issue, the Government of Canada has worked intensively with survivors and the churches to develop appropriate models for resolving claims concerning abuse at residential schools. A review of a number of the Commission's principal conclusions offers an opportunity to reflect on our progress.

Acknowledgement and Apology

The Commission stresses that survivors need an acknowledgement of what occurred from those responsible and an apology for the harms that they suffered.

The Government of Canada has acknowledged its particular responsibilities for the tragic physical and sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in many residential schools. In January 1998, as part of its response to the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Government issued a Statement of Reconciliation that expressed profound regret to the Aboriginal community for its past mistakes and acknowledged the role the Government played in the development and administration of the residential school system. To those who suffered the tragedy of physical and sexual abuse while attending residential schools, the Government of Canada said it is deeply sorry.

The Statement of Reconciliation was part of a larger action plan announced by the Government of Canada in response to the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Gathering Strength - Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan, is a long-term, broad-based policy approach designed to increase the quality of life of Aboriginal peoples and to promote self-sufficiency. The vision captured by Gathering Strength includes building a new partnership among Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians to help us deal with the problems of the past and work together to build a better future.

The Government of Canada recognizes that acknowledgment and apology are also important to build the basis for healing and reconciliation at the individual and community levels. The Government also offers individual apologies to those who are affected by abuse that occurred in the schools. Offering an apology and acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past is an important first step to building the foundation for a new relationship with Canada's Aboriginal peoples, one founded on trust and respect.

Excerpt from the Statement of Reconciliation

Against the backdrop of these legacies, it is a remarkable tribute to the strength and endurance of Aboriginal peoples that they have maintained their historic diversity and identity. The Government of Canada today formally expresses to all Aboriginal people in Canada our profound regret for past actions of the federal government which have contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together.

One aspect of our relationship with Aboriginal people over this period that requires particular attention is the Residential Schools system. This system separated many children from their Families and communities and prevented them from speaking their own languages and from learning about their heritage and cultures. In the worst cases, it left legacies of personal pain and distress that continue to reverberate in Aboriginal communities to this day. Tragically, some children were the victims of physical and sexual abuse. The Government of Canada acknowledges the role it played in the development and administration of these schools. Particularly to those individuals who experienced the tragedy of sexual and physical abuse at residential schools, and who have carried this burden believing that in some way they must be responsible, we wish to emphasise that what you experienced was not your fault and should never have happened. To those of you who suffered this tragedy at residential schools, we are deeply sorry. In dealing with the legacies of the Residential School system, the Government of Canada proposes to work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, the Churches and other interested parties to resolve the longstanding issues that must be addressed. We need to work together on a healing strategy to assist individuals and communities in dealing with the consequences of this sad era of our history."

January 1998

Respect, Engagement and Informed Choice

The Commission stresses that approaches to provide redress for survivors have to take the needs of survivors, their families and their communities as a starting point, and be grounded in respect, engagement and informed choice.

The Government of Canada's work with residential schools survivors is based on these principles. In 1999, the Department of Justice and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) facilitated a series of nine exploratory dialogues across the country with survivors of residential schools abuse, Aboriginal leaders and healers, and churches' representatives. The dialogues reflected principles of respect and engagement with those affected by residential school abuse, and helped to open lines of communication and assist all of those involved to understand the needs of survivors and their communities and develop options for addressing those needs. As a result of the dialogues, the Government agreed that DIAND and the Department of Justice should explore, with residential schools survivors and the co-defendant churches, possible models for resolving residential schools abuse claims.

Redress Programs

The Commission recommends that redress programs negotiated with survivors and their communities are the best official response for addressing the full range of their needs while being responsive to concerns of fairness and accountability.

DIAND and the Department of Justice are currently working with residential schools survivors and, where possible, co-defendant churches, to build and implement models that will provide more appropriate responses to claims relating to abuse at residential schools. A number of dispute resolution pilot projects are under way. Because the framework for each project is negotiated directly with a group of survivors, each is unique, reflecting particular needs and priorities. At the same time, a number of common elements among the different projects protect the fairness and accountability of the process, and respond to survivors' needs:

• Compensation can be paid only for validated claims, within the framework of established Canadian law. Neutral fact-finders are given the responsibility to assess the validity of claims.
• Claims in the dispute resolution projects are subject to the same standard of proof as in civil court (the balance of probabilities).
• All the projects seek to ensure that former students' personal and sensitive stories can be told and considered in a safe environment. Counselling and support services are made available to survivors during the course of the dispute resolution project. This helps to build a safe and trusting climate for the process.

Overall, the dispute resolution projects aim to work with, and resource, groups of survivors so that the parties can find credible ways to resolve abuse claims that can help to bring about healing, provide closure to participants, and begin to build a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Government of Canada.

One unresolved issue that has made it more difficult to resolve the claims of those who suffered abuse in residential schools is the financial concerns of some of the religious organizations that share responsibility for the development and administration of residential schools. Court decisions to date have found that the religious denominations that ran the schools shared responsibility for the abuse that took place, and therefore share responsibility for compensating those harmed by the abuse. Some churches that face these claims are concerned about their financial viability if they pay compensation to those who suffered abuse at the schools. The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of religious institutions in our society, and is committed to their sustainability. At the same time, the churches and the Government of Canada share responsibility for the tragic legacy of the residential schools system, and the Government is working with the churches to discuss the appropriate resolution of claims.

Community Initiatives

The Commission recommends that community initiatives should be promoted as a significant means of redressing institutional child abuse.

The Government of Canada created a community healing fund as part of Gathering Strength - Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan, announced in January 1998. The Government committed $350M to support community-based healing initiatives to address the legacy of physical and sexual abuse in residential schools. The fund is administered by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, an Aboriginally-run corporation that operates at arm's length from the Government. The Foundation supports holistic and community-based healing initiatives that address the needs of Métis, Inuit, and First Nations peoples, including projects that incorporate traditional healing methods and other culturally appropriate approaches. The Foundation does not use funds to pay costs related to compensation of individuals or litigation respecting residential schools. More information about the Foundation's work can be found at www.ahf.ca.

Many Aboriginal persons consider the loss of the opportunity to experience and learn their own language and culture to be a particularly damaging aspect of the residential schools experience. The Statement of Reconciliation acknowledged that, as a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in weakening the identity of Aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and cultures. In the Statement of Reconciliation, the Government of Canada formally expressed regret to all Aboriginal peoples in Canada for past actions of the federal government which contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together. The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of community initiatives to support Aboriginal languages and culture.

The Government presently supports a broad spectrum of initiatives to preserve and advance Aboriginal languages and culture, including:

• the $20M Aboriginal Languages Initiative which funds community and home-based activities in support of the revitalization, maintenance and growth of Aboriginal languages;
• providing more than $17M over 5 years to the Governments of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Nunavut to support community-based initiatives and other activities that foster the maintenance, revitalization, growth and protection of the six Aboriginal languages in the NWT, eight Aboriginal languages of Yukon, and the Inuktitut language;
• $7.9M annual funding for the Northern Native Broadcast Access program, which funds the production and distribution of Aboriginal radio and television programming. The 13 Aboriginal television and radio societies funded by the program broadcast to over 400 northern and remote communities (approximately 500,000 people) across Canada, in 17 Aboriginal languages in addition to English and French; and
• $8.1M in annual funding to enable First Nations and Inuit peoples to establish and operate cultural/education centres which undertake a range of activities that help to increase First Nations and Inuit peoples' knowledge and use of their traditional languages, and traditional and contemporary cultural skills.

The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of examining and reassessing existing policies and programs to help Aboriginal peoples and communities to strengthen their language and culture.

Other community-based initiatives funded by the federal government can also play a role in helping communities to address the legacy of physical and sexual abuse at residential schools. These include the Aboriginal Justice Strategy, the National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention, the First Nations Policing Policy, the Aboriginal Community Corrections Initiative, and Health Canada's programs and services for Aboriginal peoples. DIAND and the Department of Justice are exploring ways to forge stronger links between residential schools dispute resolution projects and other federally-funded or provincial community-based programs.

For example, the Aboriginal Justice Strategy, a joint initiative between the Department of Justice, DIAND and the Solicitor General, supports Aboriginal community-based justice programs in addressing the social justice challenges of the over representation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system by increasing community participation and reflecting Aboriginal values in the mainstream justice system. Supporting Aboriginal communities to play a greater role in the administration of justice helps to advance the process of healing and reconciliation, and contribute to their long-term health and well being.

Similiarly, Justice Canada's Native Courtworker program recognizes the unique needs and circumstances of Aboriginal peoples as they come into contact with the criminal justice system. The Native Courtworker program facilitates and enhances access to justice by helping Aboriginal persons accused of criminal offences to obtain fair, equitable and culturally sensitive treatment under the law. The program is available to both status and non-status Aboriginal persons. Courtworkers serve as a bridge between the criminal court system and Aboriginal communities. They strive to make the criminal justice process less alien to Aboriginal persons, whose concept of justice may be more rooted in principles of restoration, harmony and healing than in mainstream themes of punishment and retribution. Consistent with the Law Commission's recommendations, the Native Courtworker program ensures that accused persons, some of whom have been victims of child abuse, and their families are fully informed at the earliest possible stage about how the criminal justice process works; helps combat false perceptions and misinformation and sensitizes criminal justice personnel to Aboriginal language, culture, traditions, values and socio-economic circumstances; and ensures peer, professional and practical support for the accused, including those who are survivors of child abuse, in the criminal justice process.

Solicitor General Canada's Aboriginal Community Corrections Initiative is another example of a federally funded community-based program which takes the residential schools experience into account, and so can play a role in addressing the legacy of the schools. This initiative is designed to explore new options and models of offender treatment by providing funding to a small number of Aboriginal communities to develop healing strategies that involve the offender and victim, the families of both and the community as a whole. Community healing initiatives involve the police, court, and community in a joint effort to address the needs of offenders with the goal of individual and collective wellness. To help ensure that the needs of survivors of sexual abuse are addressed in the context of these community projects, the Initiative has produced a number of reports, including Responding to Sexual Abuse and At the Time of Disclosure. The reports promote best practices in caring for survivors who have become both victims and perpetrators of child abuse. The report also focuses on community-based prevention and intervention strategies, many of which are relevant to abuse suffered in institutional settings such as residential schools. They have been widely distributed to Aboriginal communities, organizations and other partners. These documents are available from the Solicitor General Website.

A number of Health Canada programs that serve the needs of First Nations communities and families can play a role as well. The Aboriginal Head Start Program, for example, is a school-readiness and early-intervention program involving parents and communities to support the needs of children. The program emphasizes strong parental involvement and community support, and focuses on supporting Aboriginal language and culture. As well, the First Nations and Inuit component of Health Canada's Brighter Futures Initiative provides ongoing support and assistance to First Nations and Inuit communities to assist them in running children's programs that are based, designed and managed in the community. These programs promote early childhood development opportunities that can help to address inter-generational and cyclical dynamics of child physical and sexual abuse.

The Government of Canada is committed to working with survivors, their communities, the churches, and other partners to address the legacy of residential schools in a manner that is flexible and integrated.

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