Yellowknife (Jan 19/07) - About 80,000 former residential school students are up for compensation now that the NWT Supreme Court has approved a massive settlement package.

The NWT court was the last court to approve the settlement, which was circulating through provincial and territorial courts last fall to allow for public consultation.

Muriel Betsina said that while the compensation is necessary, she worries that a new settlement package for residential school survivors is not enough. - Erika Sherk/NNSL photo

"We've suffered long enough for it," said Muriel Betsina, a residential school survivor.

Betsina recounted the eight years spent at St. Joseph's convent without a single visit home. They took her childhood from her, she said.

The NWT's approval of the settlement package is a good thing, Betsina said. She said she hopes payments will make it through soon.

Bill Erasmus, regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), said he is concerned that delays are already popping up.

The Conservative government is currently appealing fees that are to be paid to a Regina lawyer involved in the package - between $25 million and 40 million.

"We're hoping that it proceeds without further delay," said Erasmus.

The package itself - a massive class-action settlement - involves payments of $10,000 for the first year spent at residential school and $3,000 for each year thereafter. It is estimated that average payments will be about $23,000 per person.

Beyond that, payments for abuse include up to $275,000 for proven harm from abuse and up to $250,000 for proven loss of income due to the harm received at the schools.

Erasmus said the AFN is pleased with the compensation package.

"The federal government is agreeing that they handled the (residential schools) situation poorly," he said. "It was an abysmal failure."

Margaret Messer, a Yellowknife resident, began residential school in Fort Resolution when she was four. She stayed for eight years.

Messer, 60, cried as she spoke of having her head plunged into cold water as a child for falling asleep in church.

"I don't think it's enough," she said of the settlement, "because of what we went through.

"Not enough has been done to help everyone come to terms with what happened," said Messer. She is worried that there has not been enough healing, she said.

Betsina agreed that there is still work to be done to help their people cope.

"I still have that big scar inside me where I never dealt with residential school trauma," she said.

The residential schools were "a tragic and shameful chapter in the history of our country's relationship with its aboriginal peoples," wrote NWT Chief Justice Ted Richard in a court document explaining his reasons for approving the settlement.

The settlement includes $145 million for healing - for students and all those who have been affected by the aftermath of their experiences at residential school.

"The future that was created (by residential schools) is now a lamentable heritage for those children and the generations that came after," reads the document.

Betsina said this is one of her greatest worries.

"I try to be a good mother, but I'm not the loving mother that I should be," she said.

She doesn't know how to be a mom to her kids, having been wrenched away from her family for so long, she said.

"My scar is there and I'm giving it to my children and I see my children giving it to their children. The generation curse is still going around," she said.

She said money is needed to help stop the cycle.

"I want my grandchildren's generation to have a good, good life," she said.