Madam Speaker, I am happy to respond to the member for Calgary Centre-North about his question pertaining to the residential school claims program.
To respond to one of his questions, he probably knows that the government has appealed the Cloud decision.
As my colleague is aware, the government launched the alternative dispute resolution process in November 2003 as a fast, safe and effective option to resolve complex and sensitive abuse claims.
The underpinning of the ADR process is to resolve the majority of claims within seven years at a cost of $1.7 billion, with $1 billion of that money going directly to former students. In addition, claimants have access to counselling and commemoration. To date, over 1,000 former students have applied to the ADR process.
Government agreed to support the Assembly of First Nations to prepare a report that would recommend ways to make the ADR process more acceptable to former students. This demonstrates our willingness and openness to listen to the advice of key stakeholders and ensure a healthy policy debate.
The ADR process was only designed as an accelerated way to review and compensate for claims of physical and sexual abuse and wrongful confinement. The Assembly of First Nations review seeks a much broader scope. The Assembly of First Nations has recommended compensation for each of the 87,000 former students. This is on top of compensation for claims of physical and sexual abuse. We need to take a careful look at the costing of the Assembly of First Nations proposal to establish how there could be savings as stated.
We are legally required to respond to any claim related to Indian residential schools and now face about 11,300 such outstanding claims.
I hope that the hon. member is not suggesting that the government pay all the claims without verifying them, since the government has an obligation to Canadians to ensure that all claims of abuse are validated before compensation is awarded. There is often a marked departure between what is claimed and what gets accepted.
It takes time and money to verify the allegations and properly assess the impact of the abuse. This is a very large expenditure and is part of government's due diligence to taxpayers.
I want to add that there is a rigorous competitive bidding and selection process to award research contracts. Historical research firms are selected via MERX, the national electronic bidding system. For the hon. member to suggest anything different is completely unfounded.
In summary, the government designed the ADR process to give former students a choice in how best to resolve their residential school claims. We are offering a timely, supportive and humane approach to resolving claims.