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.
Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
Indian residential schools were a network of "residential" (boarding) schools for Native Canadians (First Nations or "Indians"; Métis and Inuit). Funded by the Canadian government's Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and administered by Christian churches, predominantly the Roman Catholic Church in Canada (60%), but also the Anglican Church of Canada (30%), and the United Church of Canada (including its pre-1925 constituent church predecessors)(10%). The policy was to remove children from the influence of their families and culture and assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. Over the course of the system's existence, approximately 30% of native children, roughly some 150,000, were placed in residential schools nationally.