The government in Ottawa announced on Tuesday (local time) that a fundamental agreement was reached with victim representatives on funding of 40 billion Canadian dollars (about 28 billion euros).
Half of this amount is compensation payments to victims and their families, for children who were taken away by parents and legal guardians between 1991 and 2021 and were taken to the homes, it said. The other half should flow into long-term reforms of the home and social system.
The government wants to use the money to settle a legal dispute. In an historic judgment, Canada’s Human Rights Court found that indigenous children suffered from insufficient government funding for child and family services in their communities, resulting in family separation.
Canada’s government remains under great pressure after hundreds of bodies of indigenous Canadian children have been found in anonymous mass graves near former boarding schools, mostly run by the Catholic Church. UN human rights experts had asked the government of Canada and the Vatican in the summer to provide a comprehensive explanation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had asked the Pope to come to Canada and apologize. He himself asked for forgiveness and let the flags on public buildings fly at half mast for months.
Source: Nachrichten
