Premier Scott Moe delivered the formal apology late Monday morning during a speech in a crowded hall in the community located about 460 kilometres north of Saskatoon.

The Ile-a-la-Crosse Residential School Survivors Committee has now reached tentative settlements with both the provincial and federal governments. In March, the federal government announced plans to pay up to $27-million to former residential school survivors and their families and $10-million to projects that address healing, education, language and culture.

Premier Moe said we need to acknowledge the past before we can step forward into the future.

The school was open for more than a century before finally burning down in the 1970’s. Children from many communities, such as La Loche, Buffalo Narrows and Dillon, were sent to the residential school. Some were subject to physical and sexual abuse and all were prevented from speaking their mother tongue.

The apology comes with a $40.2 million settlement for school survivors and their families. Local MP Buckley Belanger was raised in the area and is a Secretary of State in the federal Liberal government.

The compensation settles a lawsuit filed by six school survivors on behalf of all who attended the residential school in Ile-a-la-Crosse. Earlier this year, the federal government reached a $27 million agreement in principle, plus another $10 million for projects to help with healing, education, land and culture.

The Ile-a-la-Crosse resident school survivors were excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement because the school was determined not to qualify as an “Indian Residential School.”