Miller ‘dumfounded’ appeal dropped over Catholic Church’s residential school payments
Newly named Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says he wants to get to the bottom of why Ottawa abandoned its appeal of a ruling releasing the Catholic Church from its settlement obligations to residential school survivors.
“I am as puzzled as everyone,” he told The Canadian Press in a recent, wide-ranging interview.”
“I don’t know what there is to do yet.”
The ruling, handed down by a Saskatchewan judge in July 2015, found a deal had been struck between the federal government and a corporation of Catholic entities. That deal released the church groups from their remaining obligations within the $79-million worth of payments and in-kind services owed to survivors under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, approved in 2006.
Today, the efforts made by Catholic bodies to relieve itself of responsibilities under the historic arrangement face renewed scrutiny as First Nations searching former residential school sites confirm the discovery of what are believed to be hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children forced to attend them.
Thousands told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that they had been neglected, starved, and both physically and sexually abused at the church-run, government-funded institutions.
Several questions have been raised around why survivors didn’t receive more compensation from the Catholic Church, including why the federal government discontinued its appeal filed not long after the 2015 decision came down.
