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BC Government Announces New Woodlands Settlement

The provincial government announced plans over the weekend to compensate former residents of Woodlands who had been excluded from a 2010 settlement because they were discharged before 1974. The government also announced plans to raise settlement amounts to $10,000 for all survivors. Read the government news release here.

A process will be developed over the coming months to confirm addresses and contact information of the former Woodlands residents. It is expected that monies will be paid out by March 31, 2019.

The payments are being made on an ex-gratia basis, without admission of liability on the part of the Province.

Thanks are owed to the Minister of Health and Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix as he has raised this issue with the previous government repeatedly and included it in his campaign platform in 2013.  Now that he is in government, he was able to follow through on that commitment to survivors of Woodlands.

Media Coverage

Premier John Horgan extends compensation to Woodlands survivors who were cut out of previous settlement
by Charlie Smith on March 31st, 2018 at 5:17 PM
It’s a story that the Georgia Straight has revisited over the years: the refusal of the B.C. Liberal government to compensate some survivors of the infamous Woodlands School, even though a 2002 review by the ombudsman described decades of systemic abuse.

B.C. government to compensate more Woodlands survivors
Survivors who lived at Woodlands before 1974 — and excluded from earlier settlement — will receive $10K each CBC News · Posted: Mar 31, 2018 2:11 PM PT
Former residents of the Woodlands provincial mental institution, who lived there before 1974, will now be compensated for the abuse they suffered there, the province announced Saturday.

BC promises compensation for Woodlands survivors left out of previous settlement
Amy Smart Globe and Mail March 31, 2018
Speaking from the site where a notorious school and psychiatric facility used to stand, one of its survivors says he finally feels a festering wound begin to close.