How many 'investigations' into residential schools can Canadians afford?
brew noser <[email protected]>
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What the hell are the aboriginal groups demanding now? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was not enough for them? It started in 2008 and ended in 2015. More than $3.5 Billion was paid out to 'survivors', many parents and even the children of those who attended the schools. And now, again, we have natives marching in the streets demanding ANOTHER investigation into the same issue. What's even more interesting is the term 'independent' investigation. The TRC one was exclusively of aboriginal members. Would an 'independent' investigation involve RCMP, forensic experts, legal experts and Church representatives? I doubt that very, very much. This is a repeat demand from 2008 which resulted in massive costs to taxpayers and reaped big money to individuals who attended those schools but may, or may not have, experienced abuse and trauma. https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/this-is-about-our-children-ottawa-march-calls-for-independent-investigation-into-residential-schools-1.5530667 _______________________________ Who funded the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Between 2007 and 2015, the Government of Canada provided about $72 million to support the TRC 's work.Jun. 11, 2021 _________________ Common Experience Payment (CEP) The IRSSA offered former students blanket compensation through the Common Experience Payment (CEP) with an average lump-sum payment of C$28,000. The CEP, a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, totaling C$1.9 billion, was "part of an overall holistic and comprehensive response to the Indian residential school legacy." Payments were higher for more serious cases of abuse. The CEP recognized "the experience of living at an Indian Residential School(s) and its impacts. All former students who resided at a recognized Indian Residential School(s) and were alive on May 30, 2005 were eligible for the CEP. This include[d] First Nations, Métis, and Inuit former students." This initial payment for each person who attended a residential school amounted to C$10,000 per person plus C$3,000 per year. The application deadline for CEP was 19 September 2011 with some exceptions made until September 19, 2012. By 31 December 2012, "a total of 105,540 applications were received under the common experience payment. C$1.62 billion was paid to "78,750 recipients, representing 98% of the 80,000 estimated eligible former students." Independent Assessment Process The IRSSA allotted C$960 million to the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), "a settlement fund for claims of sexual abuses, serious physical abuse and other wrongful acts" at IRS which "provides money to those who experienced serious physical and/or sexual abuse at an Indian Residential School (...) The maximum payment is C$275,000, but an additional C$250,000 may be awarded for claims of actual income loss." By 31 December 2012, over C$1.7 billion in total was issued through the IAP. around three times more applications were received than expected, and the IAP is forecast to continue hearings until around 2017. By 2011 there were already 29,000 claims, double the 12,500 originally estimated by the IRSSA and this number was expected to rise even more. Violent abuse was "rampant, not isolated." According to Dan Ish, Indian Residential School Adjudication Secretariat chief adjudicator for the IAP, estimated in 2012 that IAP claims would be somewhere between two and three billion dollars more than anticipated. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ _____________________________ Some more truly independent voices summarized the whole expedition, report and claims this way: Questioning of findings Hymie Rubenstein, a retired professor of anthropology, and Rodney A. Clifton, professor emeritus of education and a residential school supervisor in the 1960s, held that, while the residential school program had been harmful to many students, the commission had shown "indifference to robust evidence gathering, comparative or contextual data, and cause-effect relationships," which resulted in the commission's report telling "a skewed and partial story." The Truth and Reconciliation Report did not compare its findings with rates and causes of mortality among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children attending public schools. Rubenstein and Clifton noted that the report also failed to consider Indian residential schools were typically located in rural areas far from hospitals, making treatment more difficult to acquire. In an essay defending John A. Macdonald from the claim of having committed genocide, Patrice Dutil, a professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson University, wrote that the commission was "yet another very expensive prise de conscience designed to keep the light on a painful aspect of the Canadian experience", and that the volumes on residential schools "barely pretends to be an academic document." He went on to write that "the TRC’s report does not, technically or literally speaking, constitute 'history.' The study makes no attempt to put things in perspective, to show how practices evolved or to compare the Canadian experience with that of other countries. It is, rather, a blunt catalogue of findings typical of Royal Commissions, providing a long list of mini-studies of various phenomena with scarcely an academic veneer." _______________________________ How many Canadians are willing to go through this again - for what is very, very obviously another kick at the same can. Just the costs will vary.