$2.8-billion settlement reached in class-action lawsuit over residential schools

Officials announced Saturday that the federal government and 325 First Nations have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit, seeking reparations for the loss of language and culture brought on by Indian residential schools, for $2.8 billion.

The agreement still has to be approved by a Federal Court before it can be disbursed to recipients, who filed the claim for collective compensation in 2012 as part of a broader class action known as the Gottfriedson case.

Canada agreed to pay the $2.8 billion of settlement money into a new trust fund that will operate for 20 years, if the court approves the deal. The fund will be run independent of the federal government, according to officials.

The fund organization will be governed by a board of nine Indigenous directors, of whom Canada will choose one, the agreement says.

"While settlements like those announced today ... do not make up for the past, what it can do is address the collective harm caused by Canada's past," said Marc Miller, the minister for Crown-Indigenous relations, at a Vancouver event Saturday morning. "The loss of language, the loss of culture and heritage."

Miller noted that this was the first time bands specifically were being compensated, with the funds set to support the revival, protection, promotion and wellness of Indigenous languages and cultures.

Plaintiffs in the case, which was initially filed by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc and shíshálh Nation in British Columbia, developed a disbursement plan for the funds, according to officials.

The Gottfriedson case is named after a former B.C. regional chief, Shane Gottfriedson, who filed it alongside shíshálh band councillor Gary Feschuk.

It initially consisted of the combined band reparations claim (known as the band class) and the residential school day scholars claim. Day scholars are survivors who attended the institutions during the day but went home at night, and were left out of the 2006 residential schools settlement.

The Trudeau government reached an out-of-court settlement with day scholars in June 2021, agreeing to pay cash compensation to survivors and their descendants, settling part of the Gottfriedson case.

But Canada initially refused to negotiate with the remaining band reparations plaintiffs. Their case was heading for trial until it was abruptly adjourned to pursue negotiations last fall.

As part of the agreement, the band class members agreed to "fully, finally and forever" release the Crown from claims that could conceivably arise from the collective harms residential schools inflicted on First Nations, as alleged in a previous court filing.

This legal release would not cover or include any claims that may arise over children who died or disappeared while attending residential school, the agreement says.

Gottfriedson said on Saturday that the agreement couldn't make up for Canada's "policy of attacking our language and culture," but that Indigenous nations would now be able to lead their own cultural revival efforts with the funds.