On Tuesday, the Government of Canada announced a US $ 31 billion settlement in reparation for the indigenous community. These funds come after the ruling of the Canadian Court of Human Rights, which considered the lack of public aid for this minority as a form of discrimination and structural racism.
It’s something that could mark the end of decades of litigation. On Tuesday, the Government of Canada released “the largest agreement in the history of the country“: Ottawa will pay US $ 31 billion in compensation and support for initiatives to protect indigenous organizations.
This agreement, the result of various lawsuits by indigenous and human rights groups, is intended to compensate for a discriminatory governmental system with Canadian native children and all those harmed as a consequence.
“We have reached an agreement of historic principles to compensate First Nations children and families who have been harmed by lack of funding, something discriminatory,” said Justin Trudeau, the country’s prime minister, through social networks.
We’ve reached historic agreements-in-principle to compensate First Nations children and families who have been harmed by discriminatory underfunding, and to reform the First Nations Child and Family Services program and Jordan’s Principle – so no child faces discrimination again. https://t.co/ufeHcvihCk
– Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 5, 2022
Half of this economic compensation will be invested in compensation for the affected infants – together with their families or caregivers – and the other half will be used to protect the indigenous minority in the North American nation.
Thousands of native minors, separated from their families
This is the result of 14 years of legal battles, with complaints that tried to demonstrate structural racism in Canadian institutions. Evidence has accused that, instead of providing financial support to indigenous children, the most common strategy was to separate them from their families – by giving them up for adoption or sending them to boarding schools.
“This is not related, nor was it, with the education received by their parents. It is an issue related to poverty,” accused Cindy Woodhouse, head of indigenous communities in the province of Manitoba and negotiator of the agreement, during a conference.
“This is not related, nor was it, with the education received from their parents. It is an issue related to poverty.”
According to the indictment, the Canadian Court of Human Rights ruled that the Executive has contributed to this situation in the form of discrimination. The data show that, despite representing only 8% of the country’s childhood, indigenous children occupy more than half of the centers and host families.
Along these lines, half of the funds in the agreement are intended to strengthen the First Nations children’s system and, at least for the next five years, to ensure that they remain with their families.
According to the counts, about 115,000 minors have been separated from their families since 1991. One of the reasons why different organizations took the case to court in 2007.
“We have waited for this agreement for a long time. The country’s indigenous groups have worked very hard to achieve this, ”added Woodhouse, pointing to the negotiation as a victory for Native Canadians.
Already on December 13, as an indication of the agreement, the Minister of Relations between the Crown and the Indigenous Groups recognized the governmental failures with the indigenous people.
“It has been 30 years of failure and discrimination against indigenous children,” said Miller, who after the announcement of the agreement argued that “historical injustices require historical reparations.”
Miller was one of the negotiators who began the talks after receiving the green light from the court in 2019. The repeated appeals from Ottawa did not proliferate, and the investigating judge set December 31, 2021 as the deadline to reach a friendly agreement.
The scandal of the mass graves of indigenous children
While the wounds of racism against indigenous people in Canada are long-lasting, in 2021 they reached one of their high points. Last year, 1,200 graves – with no names of the dead – were discovered in four former boarding schools for indigenous children.
The discovery resulted in dozens of demonstrations across the country. In Canada, the colonial legacy has been especially in the spotlight since 2015, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlighted the separation of thousands of indigenous children from their families.
For decades, at least 139 educational institutions relied on concepts such as “assimilation by force” for native children, something the Commission called “cultural genocide” as it was an attempt to end indigenous heritage and traditions. During their stay in these boarding schools, thousands of minors suffered sexual and psychological abuse and were victims of racism.
“We will never forget you” is one of the messages that can be seen in the monuments dedicated to his memory.
With a double complicity, these centers were financed by the federal government and managed by religious groups -mainly Catholic-.
“This compensation could have been given in 2000 … But Canada chose not to. And now we have tens of billions of dollars of debt and, most importantly, children who have lost their lives and, many times, their childhood in the process, “said Cindy Blackstock, CEO of the organization that started the case.
The strong stigmatization of indigenous society in Canada continues to be one of its main social problems. Something that, as the indigenous people themselves point out, the collective memory of the country will not forget. Since the beginning of its operation, it is estimated that more than 6,000 indigenous children have died in school boarding schools.
With AP and local media
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