What is it worth to grow up within your own family and to learn the language spoken by your grandparents?

What is the cost of being removed from your culture, of being raised to forget the customs and traditions that have been passed down for generations?

Earlier this week the federal government put a dollar value on these losses, with a major funding announcement for those who attended Indian residential schools.

The agreement, which was reached by the federal government, a number of churches and first nations organizations and lawyers representing thousands of former students, promises all past students money for each year they attended a school.

Every former student is eligible for $10,000 initially, followed by $3,000 for each subsequent year they spent in an institution.

There are approximately 80,000 former students of residential schools alive in Canada today, according to Statistics Canada.

In total $1.9 billion has been promised for payments.

The program, called 'Common Experience Payment,' is considered a major step forward by some former students.

Progress is in the message though, not the money.

'It's an apology and it's recognition. To me it's a closure, that's it. I'm leaving everything behind and moving forward,' said former residential school student Larry Bill of Whitehorse.

'They didn't apologize until now, right? This is public,' he said.

Bill spent 11 years in residential schools in the territory. He was born in Whitehorse but was moved to Carcross as a very young child.

He lived at the Choutla school, which was run by the Anglican Church, from kindergarten until Grade 6. He was then transferred back to Whitehorse, where he lived at Coudert Hall and then in a group home.

'I was mistreated pretty bad. I ran away lots, you know. I did a lot of things and a lot of things were done to me. I don't want to look at it no more,' he said in an interview yesterday.

'There were a lot of people that ran away. I was one of the steady runners.'

While Bill currently works as a conservation officer with the Yukon government, he went through very dark times as a result of the abuse he suffered as a child inside the institution.

'I was down on Skid Row before, because of all this. I got hate in my heart,' he said.

Bill decided though, that he didn't want that life.

'I just changed. I said, I gotta move on.' So I did.'

The federal government and various churches have been in the process of dealing with the legacy of pain and loss left in the wake of residential schools since the late 1980s.

Until now, however, the focus for compensation was on students who were sexually and physically abused by staff at the schools.

For years, the federal government fought against suits that dealt with the loss of language, culture and separation from family, Whitehorse lawyer Laura Cabott said Wednesday, the day of the announcement.

While they apologized and recognized residential schools were wrong, the government would not compensate students until now.

'In the background, always looming, were these claims that are making their way through the court system saying you can put a pricetag on loss of language and culture, you can put a price tag on, basically, genocide and assimilation?' said Cabott.

Cabott was in Toronto negotiating the agreement on behalf of a few hundred former residential school students in the Yukon.

For over half of the negotiations, Cabott was the only lawyer representing the North, she told the Star.

The talks began six months ago with the idea of a single national class action suit that would be approved by a judge in Toronto.

'This is not going to work,' she said about the initial plan. 'If this is truly going to be a pan-national agreement and you want buy-in from survivors across the country, this document needed to look, breathe, feel and be truly a national document.'

The new deal does not prevent people who were the victims of sexual and serious physical abuse from seeking individual compensation either.

There are currently 226 outstanding individual claims in the Yukon.

Part of the agreement includes changes to the out-of-court process former students can choose to pursue to settle their individual claims.

While former students have the option of taking their claim to court, they can also chose the Independent Assessment Process, a new incarnation of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) program.

Created in 2003, ADR is an out-of-court hearing that attempts to reach a settlement for victims of sexual and serious physical abuse by ranking them on a scale of severity.

One of the changes is the ceiling for these cases, financially, Cabott explained.

The maximum sum used to be different in various parts of the country. It has now been equalized regardless of province or territory.

Within the Yukon the total has been raised from $245,000 to $275,000, plus $250,000 for loss of income.

Although Cabott described ADR as a good program, she said it was too slow.

'It wasn't good enough. It was too slow, it was too cumbersome,' she said.

Last year the program processed 100 claims and this year the target was 1,000, although Cabott said it is unlikely they will process the full number by year-end.

Under the new plan, the target has been raised to 2,500 claims per year. The idea is to have all claims settled within the next three to five years, she said.

This week's agreement includes ideas drawn from other countries around the globe, including South Africa and Ireland, and will likely serve as an international precedent in its own right, Cabott added.

While the issue of whether the children of residential school students are eligible for compensation was discussed, the answer was no.

The government has earmarked $60 million for a Truth and Reconciliation process, $10 million for commemoration projects and $125 million for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

These programs were created to help deal with the devastating intergenerational repercussions of residential schools within native communities, according to Sarah Mangione, media relations and public affairs officer for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada.

First nations organizations involved in the negotiations were clear that healing was more important than money, she said.

'Money is great �- but what's more important is healing. The residential school experience affects more than just the former student. These are people that were sent away from their families, that came back without knowing their language, their culture or anything else.'

Many students were abused while attending the schools, and as a result some became abusive as parents, she said, which resulted in 'several generations of extreme dysfunctionality.'

Survivors of residential schools want their story to be heard and recorded in Canadian history, Mangione said.

The only requirement to collect payments is to have attended an Indian residential school.

Only some schools are given that label, however.

In the Yukon, four institutions have been deemed Indian residential schools. These include the Choutla School in Carcross and St. Paul's Hostel in Moosehide, just downriver from Dawson, both run by the Anglican Church.

Two schools that operated out of Whitehorse, Coudert Hall run by the Roman Catholic Church and Ridgeview Home for Children run by the Baptist Church, are also institutions on the list.

While it falls just on the B.C. side of the border, the residential school in Lower Post is also on the list. This mission school housed many Yukon children, primarily of the Kaska Nation.

The government agreed to put the Whitehorse Baptist school back onto the list of residential schools during the final hours of negotiations last Saturday, before it was signed on Sunday.

'The federal government was always saying that it wasn't one of their Indian residential schools,'' Cabott said. 'Well, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.'

If former students accept the payment program from the government, they give up the right to sue the government or churches for anything other than sexual and serious physical abuse.

On average, each former student is likely to receive approximately $25,000, Mangione said.

To become official the agreement still has to be approved by seven judges across the country, she said. The three territories fall under one jurisdiction as do the Maritime provinces and Ontario. Each remaining province will have its own judge.

While Bill says he moved on years ago, the agreement still provides closure.

'As first nations we have to learn to forgive too and move on if you want to. Quit hanging onto grudges, you know. We have to move on in order to get along. There are some people that are still hanging on. But to forgive and to move on is a big relief for both sides�-.

'I've done that already. In your heart, you just say it.'