Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to be here today to provide an update on the implementation of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, which began September 19, 2007. I would like to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I'll speak slowly. To date, the government has processed more than 82,000 common experience payment applications of the more than 92,000 applications received. This is in addition to the approximately 10,000 advance payments that have already been paid to former students 6

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. We've had an initiative under way called the advocacy and public information program. In 2006-07, we had $5 million available in funding. Last fiscal year we had $6 million, and this fiscal year the program has been reduced to $4 million. So over a sin

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The decision was made by government.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's right. We get proposals from a number of different organizations. We assess them based on the terms and conditions. We also assess them based on last year's performance and the deliverables that were provided. And we try to find out where we can maximize the use of the dol

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Actually, the objective of the information dissemination program is not as much to be filling out forms and to be working in that capacity, because we have other services and initiatives available for form filling—the Service Canada centres, the CEP response centre, and so on.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, it was how the funding was sought a number of years ago. It was for information to be provided to former students as part of the settlement agreement, doing workshops and making presentations, and so on.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I would first like to clarify that the Prime Minister will deliver the apology on June 11. Here are some details about the commission. The three commissioners will be Mr. Harry S. LaForme, Ms. Claudette Dumont-Smith and Ms. Jane Brewin Morley and the commission will

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The work is supposed to go on for five years. The process calls for seven national events to be held. At the moment, it is impossible to say in which cities or in which regions they will take place. However, the commissioners have reviewed the events with former pupils. Perhaps i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It is possible.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Requests could come from organizations or from former pupils. It is up to former pupils to decide the way in which a hearing will proceed. Former pupils can ask for a hearing to be held in camera, but they can also decide to appear in public.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is a good question. Reconciliation can be seen in a number of ways.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For me, it is about becoming knowledgeable about the history of residential schools in Canada. It is also possible to... a better understanding of why our people are the way they are--why we have problems with addictions, why we have problems with employment, and so on. A lot o

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can speak to that. Just to contextualize it again, we've received over 90,000 applications. We've paid over 65,000 now. I should mention there's a category of applications. There are over 5,000 of them where there is missing or incomplete information. Most of that is regardin

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We expect to have about 4,000 of those claims processed by the first week of June. Then what we've set out as service standards is 90 days to have your reconsideration claim processed, for the majority of cases. However, for many cases, it'll take up to 160 days, because these pa