Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I will be sharing my time with my colleague Marc.

Ms. Davis, could you tell us, after the apology by the Prime Minister, how did the commission change its way of proceeding with settlements?

[Caroline Davis]

We regarded the apology as being very key to the moving forward of all our operations. We do take it very seriously in everything we do.

I think reconciliation operates at very many different levels. It operates at a societal level in the sense of the relations between the rest of Canada and aboriginal people, but where we're more concerned is the relations between the survivors that we are trying to assist and to provide the payments to and ourselves, and the amount of support that is available to them.

I mentioned the crisis line. We have survivors who are in quite fragile mental states. The process of reconciliation for them does involve health counselling to attempt to get at the causes of their mental fragility in terms of the abuse they suffered when they were young. Health Canada has a network of regional health support workers who go into communities to work with individual people and communities. So I think reconciliation is at the heart of that work that we're doing.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Actually, we have heard that in the case of certain kinds of treatments, money was deducted from the payments for this care. How do you intend to correct this problem?

[Caroline Davis]

The emphasis we put in the first set of operations on the common experience payment was to get the payments moving as quickly as we could. We'll go back and, for instance, find people who had claimed for maybe seven or eight years but we had records only for five. We'll do a reconsideration process that will give them the benefit of the doubt, and if we've lost records, that really is not their fault, it's ours, so we will be trying to respond to the needs in that way.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

We know that some people are much older than others, and that some are very ill. Have any specific measures been taken to find them as quickly as possible?

[Caroline Davis]

Yes, very definitely. I mentioned the health support workers. We try to make sure that we are responding quickly in cases where people fall ill and are in desperate need of the payments. So we do try to provide some care at that level as well.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Davis.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Four minutes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Fine.

Ms. Davis, I have a question.

There was a boarding school in my riding, in Saint-Marc. At the time, Saint-Marc was a very small community, a small village. Here is my question: Why are the day students not eligible for this program? I am speaking about Saint-Marc, where it really was a special situation, but it was common in several communities. Many natives left their reserves in the morning, which was 12 kilometres away, went to Saint-Marc and went back late in the evening when the parents or someone else would come and get them. They experienced things and they would be entitled to file a claim in at least two cases, because at least two people came to consult me on this matter in my office. I promised to ask the question. Can you give me an answer? Is this situation provided for in the legislation? I did not see it. Perhaps I misread the act. Does the act specifically exclude day students?

[Caroline Davis]

The agreement is the other way around. It specifically includes people who stayed at residential schools, who boarded at the schools. The common experience payment goes to the people who were really taken from their families, who couldn't go home in the evening and as a result suffered greatly.

We have not made provision for people who were at day schools.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Twenty thousand people were excluded, yet several hundred were able to go home in the evening. The parties must take another look at this agreement. These people experienced things. The image that comes to mind is that they would go back home late in the evening. During the day, and particularly after school, things would happen between the time when the parents came to get them and the time they went back home. Is there any way of making some exception? Will we have to find a way of looking at that? I am talking about unusual cases that are documented. These people really were at this boarding school, but they could not sleep there because the reserve where they lived was 12 kilometres away.

[Caroline Davis]

I'll ask Mr. Vickery if he can assist with this question.

[Paul Vickery, Director and Senior General Counsel, Department of Justice]

I think during the course of the negotiation of the agreement, the issue of day students was specifically addressed. All of the parties around the table during the negotiations led by the Honourable Frank Iacobucci had the opportunity of raising questions in relation to whether particular groups of students should be included.

No agreement, of course, is necessarily perfect. The discussion that led to the agreement was focused on dealing with the common experience of those who were taken from their families and compelled to live in an institutional setting. That was the thrust of the agreement, and that is why the key criterion for compensation under the common experience payment is that the individual has undergone the common experience of an institutionalized setting in which that person lived.

Under the independent assessment process, if there are claims of abuse of either a physical or sexual nature, then a day student would, of course, be eligible for that process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That is all the time.

Now let's go to Ms. Crowder for seven minutes.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming before the committee today.

I just want to follow up on the day student question. In some cases, some students were actually put into foster homes because there were actually no 24-hour beds available in residential schools. They attended residential schools as day students but were returned to the foster care homes.

So, in effect, they were removed from their homes and often placed in culturally inappropriate homes. Why are they not considered in this process?

[Caroline Davis]

Again, they can make an appeal to the national administration committee, which does include representatives of survivors in the churches. That issue could be discussed there.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

It's not being reconsidered, though, in terms of this particular common experience payment?

[Caroline Davis]

No, it's not part of the terms we're seeking.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

You've indicated that 20,000 people are ineligible and that so far 9,000 have completed reviews. We've had many complaints about the length of the reviews. In fact I have a case here. The request was received by the CEP in April 2008. That person received a letter dated June 26, 2008. As of yesterday, they had inquired about the application still in process and were advised that no timeframe had been set for reconsiderations. We were just asked to check back periodically.

These are often elderly claimants, and you're asking them to go through a reconsideration process that has to date taken almost a year. What timeframes are in place, particularly when you're talking about 9,000 reviews?

[Caroline Davis]

We are putting a focus on this now. Having gone through the first round of the common experience payments, we are now devoting resources for research to the second and third stages.

I hope we will see an increase in the speed at which we're dealing with reconsiderations.

I would add that if there is somebody in particular who you feel needs to have a quick resolution to their claim because of the state of their health or their age, you could certainly let me know that.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

We would contact you directly?

[Caroline Davis]

You could indeed contact me directly.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Is the department planning to put in place speed-of-service guidelines for processing the reviews? Many of the departments, for example, HRSDC, have guidelines in place for processing appeals.

[Caroline Davis]

We do try to aim towards a 60-day turnaround on reconsideration. Then if there's further information that the claimant needs to provide us, there are 100 days for that.