“Opt Out” Period Ends In Canada’s Indian Residential Schools Settlement
For Immediate Release
IND-PR3-ENG
OTTAWA, ON, August 21, 2007—The “opt out” phase of a national notification programme in the Indian residential schools settlement has been completed. The postmark deadline for an opt out request was yesterday, August 20, 2007. As of now a total of 201 opt out forms from former students have been received and logged. In the coming days any additional opt out forms received which were postmarked prior to the deadline will be tallied and verified. According to the settlement agreement, as long as the total number of former students opting out is less than 5,000, the settlement will go forward. Barring unforeseen circumstances, it is expected that claim forms will be available by approximately September 20, 2007. Former students who requested a claim form will have one mailed to them at that time.Since late March of this year, notices have been distributed, published, mailed, and broadcast throughout Canada, on behalf of Courts across Canada, alerting approximately 80,000 former residential school students as well as their families that they had until August 20, 2007 to decide whether to stay in the settlement or remove themselves (opt out) from it. A massive community outreach effort also saw coordinators informing former students and families in person across Canada.
The opt out notification was a continuation of a notification programme that began in June of 2006, when former students and their families learned how to give their views about the fairness of the settlement. Then, nine Courts across Canada held public hearings. All of the Courts approved the settlement after those hearings. The opt out period formally began immediately following a Court hearing on March 22, 2007, and notices were placed on the official Court website www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca.
The end of the opt out period means that the former students who stayed in the settlement may make a claim for a payment, and are advised to request a claim form if they have not done so already. Former students—and family members—who stayed in the settlement will never again be able to sue the Government of Canada, the Churches who joined in the settlement, or any other defendant in the class actions, over residential schools. Former students who opted out of the settlement will not get any payment from the settlement. Family members who were not students do not qualify for payments.
The settlement provides:
1) At least $1.9 billion for “common experience” payments to former students who lived at one of the schools. Payments will be $10,000 for the first school year (or part of that first school year), plus $3,000 for each school year (or part of a school year) after that. Elders that received an advance payment must also submit a claim form for a common experience payment.
2) A process to allow those who suffered sexual or serious physical abuses, or other abuses that caused serious psychological effects, to get between $5,000 and $275,000 each. Those students could get more money if they also show a loss of income.
3) Programmes for former students and their families for healing, truth, reconciliation, and commemoration of the residential schools and the abuses suffered: $125 million to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation; $60 million to research, document, and preserve the experiences of the survivors; and $20 million for national and community commemorative projects.
To request a claim form for a common experience payment, former students may visit www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca, call 1-866-879-4913, or write to Residential Schools, Suite 3-505, 133 Weber St. North, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 3G9.
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/SOURCES: The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench; the Supreme Court of British Columbia; the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench; the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories; the Ontario Superior Court of Justice; the Québec Superior Court; the Supreme Court of the Yukon Territory; The Nunavut Court of Justice; and the Court of Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan.
/CONTACT (Press Only): Randy Bennett, Court Counsel, (416) 869-3538
/URL: http://www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca
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