Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly not. As I said, when it comes to abuse claims that go through the independent assessment process or the alternative dispute resolution process, they're coming to us to deal with it specifically through a settlement, through a reconciliation, through a resolution-type he

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a really good point. It's something not well-known, that non-aboriginal people did attend Indian residential schools, for a whole number of reasons, whether because sometimes they were children of staff or that they were just at a certain location where it was best that they

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and those requirements only kick in at a certain date. There was a provision in the agreement that the independent assessment process had the ability to ramp up, and the provisions kicked in I think in April. But I can get back to you on that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Any of the applications we have from April will have nine months to set a hearing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it's a challenge. I'll tell you right now people are very challenged by the numbers, but we're going to do our best to meet the requirements, because we're obligated by the courts to do so.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly, yes, we go to great lengths to ensure privacy requirements. For instance, for alternative dispute resolution cases or independent assessment process cases, which are very detailed accounts of abuse, we ensure that we work with files in the department that are security-

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a good question. It's certainly up to the former students on how they want to handle their case. In some cases, the perpetrator may no longer be alive. In other cases, we have some policies around how we contact perpetrators to be part of the hearing, for instance, or t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When former students come to us with an application to deal with an abuse through a hearing, they've pretty well made up their minds that's how they want to resolve their case. If they choose to resolve it in another way, they wouldn't be coming to us for a settlement.

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

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