Indian Boarding Homes Class Action Settlement (Canada)

Indigenous Rights · Claims Open

Current Status

Claims are open and payments are being made. The Federal Court approved the settlement agreement on December 11, 2023, finding it fair, reasonable and in the best interests of class members. The claim period opened on the Implementation Date, August 21, 2024, and runs to February 22, 2027.

As of the administrator's most recent published figures, dated July 3, 2026, 34,691 Category 1 claims and 12,352 Category 2 claims had been filed. Of those, 10,652 Category 1 claims had been approved for payment, totalling $106,520,000, along with 4,506 Category 2 claims totalling $635,750,000. The opt-out deadline passed on July 22, 2024, so exclusion is no longer available.

What the Program Was

The Indian Boarding Homes Program was created by the Government of Canada. It took children from First Nations communities and Inuit villages and placed them in other communities, usually non-Indigenous ones, to live in private homes so that they could attend school. The program began in the 1950s and Canada continued to operate it into the early 1990s.

Two lawsuits followed, one in Quebec and one in the Federal Court, brought on behalf of people who as children suffered loss of language and culture, abuse and other harms because of those placements. The Federal Court certified the federal action as a national class proceeding on June 28, 2019. The parties reached an agreement in principle on December 7, 2022 and a settlement agreement on June 15, 2023, and the Federal Court approved it after a hearing held in Vancouver in September 2023.

Separately from individual compensation, Canada is providing $50,000,000 to create a foundation intended to formally recognize the harm the program caused, support healing, and help preserve Indigenous languages and cultures.

Who Qualifies?

To be eligible for compensation, a class member must meet all three of the following conditions:

• Placement. Have been placed in a private home during the period September 1, 1951 to June 30, 1992 for the purpose of attending school — or placed after June 30, 1992 if Canada was responsible for the placement. Placements for post-secondary education, such as college or university, do not count.

• Survivorship date. Have been alive on or after July 24, 2016.

• Timely claim. Have submitted a claim before the deadline.

Two exclusions decide a large share of the questions people have. Only placements made by the federal government are eligible: foster care placements arranged for child welfare purposes are not treated as placements by Canada. And only placements in private homes are eligible: living in an Indian Residential School, a Boarding School or a Hostel is not a private-home placement, because those were institutions.

The program mainly placed First Nations and Inuit children. The administrator states that some Métis children were included on a limited basis, and that a Métis person placed by the Government of Canada in a private home to attend primary or secondary school may be a class member and can apply. Where the Category 1 form asks for an Indian status card number or Inuit disc number, a Métis claimant can write that they are Métis instead.

Receiving a Notice of Settlement in the mail does not by itself mean you are eligible — the notice was distributed broadly to reach as many potential class members as possible.

How Much Can You Get?

Compensation comes in two categories, and a class member may claim both.

Category 1 — Compensation for Placement. A single payment of $10,000 to anyone Canada placed in the Indian Boarding Homes Program. There is no assessment of harm at this stage; the payment follows from confirmed placement.

Category 2 — Compensation for Abuse. An additional $10,000 to $200,000, depending on the specific harms suffered. The settlement agreement sets five levels, and the Claims Administrator assesses the written account a claimant provides against that grid.