Common Experience Payments (Closed)
Status: Closed
The Common Experience Payments process is closed. The deadline to apply was September 19, 2011.
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Common Experience Payments Process
The Common Experience Payment (CEP)was a lump-sum payment that recognized the experience of living at an Indian Residential School(s) and its impacts. All former students who resided at a recognized Indian Residential School(s) and were alive on May 30, 2005 were eligible for the CEP. This included First Nations, Métis, and Inuit former students.
The deadline to apply for the CEP was September 19, 2011.
Applications are no longer being accepted.
Statistics on the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
How decisions on payments were made
Government of Canada researchers use several ways to verify that former students resided at a recognized Indian Residential School:
- A computer search was an automatic search of over 2,000,000 documents which produced clear answers in about 40 per cent of cases
- If the computer search did not give a clear answer, a researcher manually searched through documents for each school named in the application in order to confirm eligibility
- If a manual search did not produce a clear result, the CEP Response Centre tried to contact the applicant to find out more about their residential school experience. If the applicant can provide information, their answers will be compared with what is known about the school and life there to support the application
Once an application was processed, applicants received a detailed letter explaining their assessment. Payment, if applicable, arrived within a few days of the letter. If an applicant was not satisfied with the outcome of their application, they had an opportunity to have their application reconsidered.
Eligible Indian Residential Schools
There are 140 recognized Indian Residential Schools. Eligible schools were agreed upon between all parties to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement involved in the negotiation process. Consult Statistics on the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Schools added to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement
Article 12 of the Settlement Agreement set out a 2 part test that was used to assess each requested institution to determine if it should be recognized as an Indian Residential School. 9,469 people asked for 1,530 distinct institutions to be added to the Settlement Agreement.
Since the implementation of the Settlement Agreement, the Government of Canada found that 7 institutions met the Article 12 test criteria. These institutions were added to the list of recognized Indian Residential Schools for specific periods of time. The court added 3 institutions, the last of which was Kivalliq Hall (Nunavut), for a total of 140 Indian Residential Schools eligible under the Settlement Agreement.
Criteria to add a school to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
Under Article 12 of the Settlement Agreement, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) was responsible for researching and assessing available information and decided whether or not the requested institution satisfies the criteria to be added to the Settlement Agreement.
The criteria outlined in Article 12 of the Settlement Agreement are:
- children were placed in a residence away from the family home by or under the authority of the Government of Canada for the purpose of education
- the Government of Canada was jointly or solely responsible for the operation of the residence and care of the children resident there.
The criteria emphasize the nature of the residence and not the school.
The Government of Canada's role in the common experience payment
The Government of Canada was the trustee for the $1.9 billion set aside for the Common Experience Payment and was accountable to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and to the courts. In each stage of the process (initial application, reconsideration or appeal) the department contacted applicants to gain clarification or additional information surrounding their residential school experience to help with the research assessment. When information is unclear or incomplete, interpretation will favor the applicant.