Madam Speaker, in terms of a current situation where we are faced with a similar process, which again I think has been sorely mishandled by the government, is the claims around the residential schools against both the government and a number of the mainline Christian churches.
Let us use the Anglicans as the example, and I think they have now resolved theirs. They in effect were confronted with bankruptcy because they were involved in so much litigation. Often that litigation had been brought against them by the government rather than by some of the residents of the residential schools. Eventually, they had to in effect cave in, even though there were strong arguments that it was the government that was primarily responsible for the damages rather than the churches.
The Catholic church, the United church and the Presbyterian church were all faced with similar very costly legal processes, as opposed to building some alternative dispute resolution processes.
With regard to the fees themselves, the expectation that they would be that large is a very valid one. It is not just the lawyers who is involved. Oftentimes numerous researchers and other experts, who have to go back and historically build a case, are involved. Also people are on retainers because the process takes years, oftentimes repeating the same work. Then they go into negotiations, for which they have sometimes prepared for months, and the negotiations break down.
When we are faced with these types of caps, it is most likely that will be repeated and those legal fees will continue to escalate in size. The end result is that first nations, which we are trying to move resources in a proper compensatory fashion, will lose out on substantial portions of those settlements because of the cost of the process.
This process, again, is at the foot of this--