Memories, money spell trouble for survivors

In the months since residential school survivors began receiving their compensation package, John Edzerza has attended three funerals for friends who had received their money.

In the months since residential school survivors began receiving their compensation package, John Edzerza has attended three funerals for friends who had received their money.

The NDP MLA is now calling on the Yukon government to push the federal government to provide emergency funding to ensure there’s counselling for survivors.

The settlement saw survivors of the federally-funded, church-operated system receive $10,000 for the first year they were at a residential school, with another $3,000 for each year afterward under the Common Experience Package.

There is a separate, individual process for survivors who experienced sexual and physical abuse.

Edzerza brought forward his motion Wednesday in the legislature. He urged the government push Ottawa for emergency funding to provide counselling and other supports, like financial planning, to residential school compensation claimants.

First nations and the Committee on Abuse in Residential Schools (CAIRS) have raised concerns about the number of deaths that may be related to the compensation packages.

The Champagne and Aishihik First Nations are calling for a moment of silence and prayer next Wednesday in response to the “pain and loss in their community,” he pointed out.

“Recalling past abuses without counselling or other supports can leave victims of the residential school experience re-traumatized and vulnerable,” he told the legislature.

“I’m of the opinion that it was the federal government that created the monster. The federal government should be 100 per cent responsible,” Edzerza said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.

The compensation package is available to anyone who attended the schools from 1920 to 1997.

While the package has counselling provisions for survivors, Edzerza believes they’re not enough.

“There has to be available help in every community,” said the former Yukon Party cabinet minister.

There needs to be a plan in place that would help survivors who haven’t had so much money at one time before, cope with it, he argued.

“There’s nothing constructive that can guide them and show them how to deal with it,” he said. “It’s almost like a burden, but it’s not. It’s a good thing, but they don’t know how to deal with large sums of money.”

Although his first inclination would be to seek the help of a financial advisor, many survivors don’t know that’s an option or don’t know how to handle so much money at once.

“Is it a coincidence that some people who have been in the community for many years in the same state, and then when they get a large sum of money, they end up being deceased?” he asked.

Edzerza said that while he hates to think the situation is being caused by the residential school packages coming in, he questions why there wasn’t the rash of deaths prior to the payments being made.

The number of deaths that may be attributed in part to the compensation money is unknown, though CAIRS staff are working on it and expect to have a figure in about a month.

There’s been a total of 51 deaths in the territory since November 2007.

However, it’s a process to sort out how many were survivors of the residential school system, then calculate how many of those deaths came about because of what people were spending their compensation money on.

For many first nations individuals like Edzerza and CAIRS outreach worker Roger Ellis, there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of funerals they’ve been to recently as compensation funds have come into the territory.

Others are coming into the CAIRS office and talking about their loss.

“What we’re getting (is) a lot of clients coming in, talking about losing family members,” Norman Drynock, CAIRS’executive director, said in an interview Thursday afternoon at the CAIRS offices on Second Avenue.

Drug and alcohol use are leading to the deaths, he said.

“A lot of it is their body gives up on them - like liver malfunctioning, kidneys malfunctioning, lungs, heart - from hard drugs,” Drynock said. “Your heart just can’t stand it and it gives you an attack.”

Two conferences were held last year - one for front line workers and another for survivors of the school system.

The gatherings saw bank and financial planners give presentations on how to budget the large payments and RCMP officers discussed how to avoid financial scams.

Just as there are those who are spending their compensation packages in a negative way, there are those who have followed the advice from the conference and put their money into a trust to be spent in good ways, Ellis pointed out.

It’s others who have workers like Ellis and Drynock worried. Some argue it’s their money to do with as they want, rather than seeking the guidance of a financial planner or looking at other ways to spend it.

“They just call it free money,” Ellis said.

In some cases, survivors who quit drinking more than 20 years ago are drinking again as memories of their residential school experience come back.

“A lot of people aren’t ready to start talking about it,” he said.

Many of those, like government staff, who help survivors sign the paperwork for the compensation package aren’t trained to deal with the trauma that arises from recalling the experience.

“They can’t remember the dates they were in school because they were children,” Drynock said.

“What child is going to remember it’s 1966? So the only way a person can remember that is, ‘Oh, this happened to me when I was seven years old and I was in school one year before that.’”

Remembering a traumatic event that happened at the age of seven may bring on more memories, and with no one there with trauma counselling skills, the survivor has trouble handling the memories, Drynock said.

“They (the staff helping with the paperwork) don’t have the skills to put that person back together before they leave,” he said.

“And people who haven’t drank for years or quit doing drugs for years walk away and they feel alone, they feel isolated and the only way they can cope with it is how they did before: to drink or do drugs.”

In some cases, Ellis has come across survivors who have started drinking again who are embarrassed or become defensive when he sees them.

As a counsellor, Ellis tells them he’s not there to judge but that he’s concerned about them and will ask what’s happened to make them drink again.

After 25 years, hearing about the residential school system has rekindled memories of the school system again, he said.

“They say, ‘Well, all the sudden it just hit me after 25 years. I didn’t realize it ... and all the sudden this residential stuff come up and it just hit me like a lightening bolt.’A lot just go back into that residential mode,” he said.

It’s important for more stable funding to be available for many counselling services so victims aren’t wondering whether their counsellor will still be there when the current funding for the services runs out, Drynock said, noting he’s optimistic government funding for counselling will come through.

“I’m very hopeful, I’m very positive towards it,” he said.

Many first nations and others are expressing concerns about the situation and becoming more up-front about what’s happening.

It’s important that all support networks ask for the help that’s needed.

Along with continuing to provide counselling to both survivors of the residential school system and some children of survivors as well, CAIRS is also working on finding out just how many residential school survivors are in the territory and how many have died since the compensation packages have started flowing in.

Ellis is also hoping that in learning the numbers, he will find out how many survivors in the Yukon are originally from the territory and how many went to residential schools elsewhere in the country.

Figures for the territory weren’t available by press time this afternoon.

Statistics on the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada website show that as of last Monday across the country, 91,944 applications for the Common Experience Payment had been received, with 63,212 payments issued and another 17,226 being deemed not eligible for payment.

There are 5,143 applications being processed, with 5,868 applications needing further information before they can be complete.