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.
History of the Squamish people
Like many Indigenous communities across Canada, the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh also have a history of residential schools. The one residential school for was St. Paul’s Indian Residential School in North Vancouver. Some children were also forced to attend school in Sechelt. Some children would attend the school for 10 years at time. The children would be at the school 10 out or 12 months, seeing their parents of grandparents during the summer. Recently many elders are taking the Residential School package being offered by the Federal government.