Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is an agreement between the Government of Canada and approximately 86,000 Native Canadians who at some point were enrolled as children in the Canadian Indian residential school system, a system which was in place between 1879 and 1996. The IRSSA recognized the damage inflicted by the residential schools and established a $2 billion compensation package for all former IRS students and, in particular, those who had been abused or otherwise harmed. The agreement, announced in 2006, was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. As of December 2012 a total of $1.62 billion has been paid to 78,750 former students.
First Nations
By 1920, attendance at some sort of school was mandatory for Aboriginal children in Canada. The Indian Act made education compulsory, and where there were no federal days schools—or, in later decades, a provincial public school—a residential school was the only choice. Enrolment statistics indicate that between 20% and 30% of Aboriginal children during the history of the IRS system attended a residential school for at least a year, and many were enrolled for ten years or more. In some cases, children could return home on weekends and holidays, but for those in schools established far away from remote communities, this was not possible.