While progress is being made on the personal payments portion of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor New Denver survivors' compensation package, nothing has been done so far with the remaining $6.25 million.

When the B.C. Government issued a formal apology last year to the approximately 200 children taken from their families and placed into a residential school in New Denver in the 1950s, a $10 million compensation package was included.

The package included $5 million to create a Sons of Freedom Doukhobor Legacy Fund to preserve and promote the community鈥檚 cultural heritage and to support educational initiatives, cultural programs, and the maintenance of cultural sites.

Another $1.25 million was dedicated to research and archival services to better understand the history of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors and archive key documents and oral histories.

A $3.75 million health and wellness fund was also established with a plan to administer those funds for specific needs on an application basis. But following criticism from survivors and the B.C. Ombudsperson, directly from the fund. Living survivors are being paid $18,000 each from the fund, while the amounts for descendants of deceased survivors have yet to be determined.

According to the B.C. Attorney General, the $6.25 million in the legacy and research funds has been transferred to Selkirk College, which will be responsible for administering the funds.

But one year after the apology, that is as far things have progressed.

Raunaq Singh, a senior advisor in the Attorney General's office, told Castlegar News that the $5 million legacy fund is sitting idle until a committee of community members can be formed to direct Selkirk how to use it.

One of the stumbling blocks is bringing groups representing the living survivors and the descendants of survivors together as they have significant disagreements on how to approach the work, he added. 

"Our hope is to get the committee in place as soon as possible. Without it forming, Selkirk doesn't have direction to act on the fund by themselves."

This fund is intended to be a legacy fund that would involve investing the principal and then allocating the dividends for things like scholarships or other items, as directed by the committee.

The next step for the $1.25 million research fund is the hiring of a project co-ordinator, which the Attorney General said is underway.