Mr. Speaker, with respect to the expenditures incurred between 2013 and June 1, 2023, in legal proceedings pursuant to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement related to survivors of St. Anne's Residential School, to the extent that the information that has been requested is or may be protected by any legal privileges, including solicitor-client privilege or settlement privilege, the federal Crown asserts those privileges. In this case, it has only waived solicitor-client privilege, and only to the extent of revealing the total legal costs, as defined below.
The total actual and notional legal costs associated with legal proceedings pursuant to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement related to survivors of St. Anne's Residential School, for the period of January 1, 2013, to May 9, 2018, was provided in response to an earlier question and amount to approximatively $2,314,000. The total legal costs for the subsequent period, from May 10, 2018, to June 1, 2023, amount to approximatively $1,939,200. These costs cover all types of court proceedings, including actions, requests for direction, motions, costs proceedings and appeals. In most of these files, the Crown did not initiate the proceedings but rather acted as a defendant or respondent. The total legal costs are with respect to litigation and litigation support services, which were provided, in these cases, by the Department of Justice. Department of Justice lawyers, notaries and paralegals are salaried public servants and therefore no legal fees are incurred for their services. A “notional amount” can, however, be provided to account for the legal services they provide. The notional amount is calculated by multiplying the total hours recorded in the responsive files for the relevant period by the applicable approved internal legal services hourly rates. Actual costs are composed of file related legal disbursements paid by the Department and then cost-recovered from the client-departments or agencies, as well as the costs of legal agents who may be retained by the Minister of Justice to provide litigation services in certain cases.
The total amount mentioned in this response is based on information contained in Department of Justice systems, as of July 5, 2023.