B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma says plans are underway to complete compensation payments to the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor New Denver survivors by the end of summer.
In February 2024, the province apologized to the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor community for removing approximately 200 children from their families and placing them into a forced-schooling facility in New Denver during the 1950s.
While B.C. ombudsperson Jay Chalke and some survivors have criticized the slowness of the compensation payments that went along with the apology issued just over a year ago, Sharma says her office is working on completing the payments as soon as possible.
She also said they made a purposeful decision to focus first on the living survivors.
"Their living trauma was evident to me when I came out there (to make the apology)," Sharma told Castlegar News in a March 12 interview.
"There is a real strong emotional connection by my team here and myself about doing right by those people that we had a chance to look eye-to-eye and deliver an apology with."
Sharma said 98 living survivors were compensated within six months of the apology.
The living survivors were each given $18,000 from a $3.75-million health and wellness fund. All direct compensation payments will come from this fund while another $6.25 million was set aside for legacy, research and archival funds.
Sharma said the remaining payments to descendants of deceased survivors and a sub-set of children, who were not of school age but taken to the institution anyway, have been more complicated.
Finding out how many people fall into these categories and where they are now is taking a lot of work.
But Sharma said she appreciates the information that survivor groups have provided, helping to speed up the process.
The non-school age children "still suffered harm from the actions of government," so they will also be compensated, but at a lower rate. This group will receive $5,000 each plus an additional $1,000 per month they were incarcerated.
A payment amount for descendants of deceased survivors has yet to be set.
"I know there are heightened emotions around this because it was a traumatic incident and the government took a long time to respond at all and to compensate for the harms," said Sharma.
"There is really no amount of money that will make that pain go away, but we want to do the best we can to acknowledge that harm. ... My hope is that although there will never be enough money to compensate for the damage that was done, that it brings people peace and closure."
Survivors and their families can contact sofd@gov.bc.ca for more information or to make a claim.
