CANADA
The Province
BY TAMSYN BURGMANN, THE CANADIAN PRESS MAY 19, 2014
VANCOUVER — Carla Robinson’s mother was sexually abused as a child attending two Indian residential schools in British Columbia, but her father dodged that system and encouraged both his daughter and her children to pursue higher education.
The decades-old torment for her mother, however, has resurfaced to produce fresh anger and suspicion after the Robinson family learned a $3,000 education credit offered as part of the residential schools settlement may not be used as tuition for her 12-year-old granddaughter’s private arts school.
Many more survivors also fear they won’t be able to access the money.
Robinson’s case is one among hundreds of wide-ranging complaints expressed by First Nations families across Canada since a January announcement that remaining compensation from the $1.9 billion settlement fund would be dispersed for educational purposes. A dedicated information line, set up to help survivors making their claim, has also received more than 9,300 calls to date.
The notion that reconciliation could be fostered through education, when that was the source of so much trauma for her mother, further appals Robinson, who lives on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ont.
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