Ottawa settles residential day school class-action lawsuit for $2.8 billion

The federal government says it’s come to a $2.8 billion agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by members of a B.C. Indigenous band who attended residential schools as day scholars.

Day scholars attended residential schools during the day, but didn’t sleep there overnight.

The lawsuit originally involved three classes of complainants, but in 2021 all parties agreed to concentrate initial settlement efforts on survivors and their descendants to ensure they’d receive compensation in their lifetimes.

Former shishalh chief Garry Feschuk and former Tk’emlups te Secwepemc chief Shane Gottfriedson began the lawsuit more than a decade ago, looking for justice for day scholars abused while at the schools but who were ineligible for the 2006 settlement for full-time students.

Crown Indigenous Affairs Minister Marc Miller says more terms of the settlement will be released in February, and the $2.8 billion settlement will be put in an independent, not-for-profit trust.

—With files from The Canadian Press.