The Healing Begins: Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Residential School Settlement Agreement

In this module, you will begin to understand the efforts made to address the history of Indian Residential Schools as well as the ongoing awareness to bring this history to mainstream education.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) was established on March 31, 1998 by the federal government in response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) report. The AHF was an Aboriginal run foundation with an 11-year mandate and a budget of $350 million. They received an additional $40 million in the 2005 federal budget and $125 million from the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement in 2007, which extended their operations until Sept. 30, 2014. The following was its mission statement:

What made the AHF unique among funding agencies was that they would only fund community based healing projects. During the 16 years of operation, they funded 1,345 grants, an estimated 204,564 participants in healing projects and 49,095 participants in training programs.(2) The projects included some of the following activities:

• healing activities out on the land,

• commemoration and gatherings of survivors,

• counselling for survivors and families,

• parenting skills workshops,

• youth and Elders programming,

• prevention of abuse, violence and addictions,

• training of healers, and

• healing circles.(2)

The Residential Schools operated in Canada for over 160 years and approximately 116 of those years with federal funding. In some cases, up to three generations of families attended a Residential School; the trauma is intergenerational. The AHF states that 10 years of sustained healing support is required for one survivor to heal from the effects, but many of the projects were funded for 3 years or less. In it’s final annual report, the AHF acknowledges that many of the projects will have to discontinue their operations due to lack of funding.(2)

Although the AHF has closed its doors, their website is still active and their publications can still be accessed at the above link.

The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is the result of a class action lawsuit by Indian residential school survivors against the government of Canada and the churches who ran the residential schools. The IRSSA was negotiated between the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), representatives of Canada and the churches in question. This agreement was an effort to address the thousands of ongoing claims against the government and the churches. This effort is a monetary compensation from Canada and the churches for the atrocities inflicted on thousands of children as well as healing funds to be set aside to deal with traumas and various other issues as a result of Indian residential schools. Further, as part of IRSSA, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to bring the voice of Indian Residential School survivors forward and to create awareness to this terrible history of Canada.

There are 5 major sections to the Settlement Agreement that was signed in 2006: