Documents have now been made public revealing why the Catholic Church was let off the hook for more than $20 million in fundraising reparations over the Residential School tragedy.
Obtained recently by the Canadian Press, the documents relate to a 2015 agreement, but are just now being publicly circulated for the first time.
Those documents reveal that the Government of Canada agreed to “forever discharge” the Church of the fundraising portion of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
That agreement, signed in 2006, ordered the Church to pay $79 million in Residential School reparations, $25 million of which was to be through “best-effort” fundraising.
But, in 2015, according to the documents, a new agreement was penned, letting them off the hook for that amount, after raising just under $4 million for survivors.
While Canada initially intended to appeal the decision, no appeal was filed, and any efforts to do so now would be starting from scratch, according to the documents.
Current Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister says the Liberal cabinet was unaware of the agreement after coming to power in November of 2015.
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