OTTAWA, 06 January 2022, (TON): Canada announced a $31.5 billion agreement to reform its discriminatory child welfare system and compensate Indigenous families who suffered because of it, in what an official called the country’s largest settlement.

The agreements-in-principle include $20 billion Canadian dollars ($15.7) for First Nations children who were removed from their families and caregivers and put into state care, typically schools meant to forcibly assimilate them.

The other $20 billion Canadian dollars will be earmarked for reforming the child and family services system over the next five years.

Patty Hajdu, the Minister of Indigenous Services said “no compensation amount can make up for the trauma people have experienced.”

“But these Agreements-in-Principle acknowledge to survivors and their families the harm and pain caused by the discrimination in funding and services.”

The deal, which stemmed from lawsuits brought by First Nations families against the Canadian government, acknowledges that “discriminatory underfunding” of child and family services in indigenous communities had inflicted suffering on those involved.