Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today and to answer questions. Maybe I can take these in reverse order and follow up on some of the questions that arose when we were here last time with the minister. On thinking through and planning how this would play out i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In answer to your question about how implementation of this legislation will proceed, I would just like to give you an idea of the context and talk a little bit about the research we have done. Of course, predicting what would happen under a piece of legislation is an art, rather

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When he last appeared before the Committee, the Minister, in response to a question regarding the timeframe for implementing the legislation, which is obviously an important part of the comments that have been made here, said he was prepared to consider advice in that respect. Th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I see two parts in that question. First of all, what I hear is this. Could there be a complaint? Obviously there will almost certainly be a complaint.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To the extent that you're talking about one of our documents, yes, we looked at it and we're aware of it, in that a document like that sounds like one we would have created.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The second part of that is, would the department's information be used as part of that complaint process? The answer is—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The easiest way to answer that is to say we have all sorts of information and data. We're already in a number of litigation processes, and I'll have my colleague Daniel Ricard maybe speak to some of the litigation. We know that information is discovered all the time in all sorts

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me start a little further back. There will be complaints. People will use our information. Some of the conclusions that the department has come to they will use to advance the complaints they are making. Obviously it's not our place to stand in the position of the tribunal an

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm not sure exactly which document we've done, but are you suggesting that—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, it would be the question of a subject of a complaint that would come forward that would be specific to facts and circumstances and dealt with through the process of dealing with those things. It's not our place to prejudge what the outcome of that might be. It is our job t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. Thanks. In 1977, the act was introduced. In 1985, Bill C-31 made some amendments to the Indian Act, and there was significant discussion across the country at that time and after about some of the provisions in the act that were seen as quite discriminatory. In 1992, Bil

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I apologize if I'm not being helpful. It's certainly not by design. In terms of responding on the ongoing operations of the department, we're aware that we have many areas of significant challenge. We work to improve education systems, we work to improve child and family service

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We haven't gone out and tried to figure out what the pleadings might be by a specific plaintiff who might launch a complaint. We know there are areas in which we are trying to do better to avoid the need for complaints in the first place. For example, recently in child and family

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll ask my colleague, Daniel Ricard, to speak in a moment about the carriage of litigation, because that's part of how we think through this. We are aware that there will be complaints that come up. Those complaints will be spec-specific, they will be circumstance-specific, and

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It won't only be on the basis of information that we have. People will base their complaints—