Money for education set aside for former residential school students

If you’re a former Inuit residential school student who was eligible for a Common Experience Payment, you can also apply for up to $3,000 in education subsidies out of the program’s multi-millions in leftover funds.

The deadline to apply for the CEP program, part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for former Inuit or First Nations residential school students, fell on Sept. 19.

The original amount designated for the CEP fund was $1.9 billion. As of Sept. 12, the balance in the fund stood at more than $306 million.

The subsidies are called “personal credits for educational purposes,” said Genéviève Guibert, a spokeswoman with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.

Once the new program is launched, any amount left in the fund over $40 million will be set aside “in the form of personal credits for educational purposes to all eligible CEP recipients,” she said. “Recipients will be eligible for personal credits up to a maximum value of $3,000 per person.”

The program will likely launch sometime next year, although it’s still not clear how and when that money will be handed out.

In 2015, any leftover money will be transferred to the Inuvialuit Education Foundation and the National Indian Brotherhood Trust Fund to support education programs.

But the fund’s current $306 million balance is still likely to change.

According to the settlement agreement, CEP applications will be accepted for up to one year after the application deadline in cases where the applicant could not apply within the designated timeframe, “due to disability, undue hardship or other exceptional circumstances.”

If you apply late, you have to say in your application why, in writing.

If you’re not satisfied with the answer or you’ve been denied CEP, you can also appeal the decision or apply to have the decision reviewed – a process that will continue beyond the CEP’s deadline.

That’s a process that Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. has undertaken on behalf of a number of Nunavut’s former students who stayed at hostels in the 1950s and 1960s which weren’t recognized under the settlement agreement.

In some cases, Inuit applicants have been denied compensation because it’s unclear whether or not the federal government had the sole responsibility over the particular school they attended.

NTI hopes to expand the list of schools approved under the settlement agreement to help more Inuit gain access to compensation.

According to the federal government’s latest numbers from August 2011, 4,364 Inuit have applied and received a CEP cheque.

Of those claimants, 2,451 come from Nunavut.

Eligible former students receive $10,000 under the CEP for the first year of school they attended and $3,000 for each additional year. The program was set up to recognize the impact of residing at an Indian residential school.