Public Safety committee  Yes, using a Cree term, it's Kwayaskonikiwin. It means achieving balance. It means setting things right. When there's a disturbance in a person's life or in the community, the restorative justice programs and the community justice persons in our communities feel that it's extre

Public Safety committee  There's a number of ideas there. I appreciate and thank you for your comments and for describing it as an open-ended question. The safety and security of our families are uppermost in the minds of our communities, particularly as it is a reflection of the customary law that has

Public Safety committee  As we've indicated, the lack of any exemption would be viewed as inappropriate and contrary to the intent of the apology and the objectives of the Indian residential school settlement. The persons who we've spoken to about the bill were uniform and swift in their reaction to the

Public Safety committee  Mr. Scarpaleggia, our evidence is dealing expressly with the awards under the Indian residential schools settlement agreement and those awards provided to first nations or aboriginal persons. The example you've given is wholly different in its nature and its source. Victims have

Public Safety committee  We're dealing with a specific set of events that led to specific victimization of specific persons and a settlement agreement that's been approved by at least nine courts. We're dealing with a very large set of effects that has, regrettably, the effect of dominating much of our i

Public Safety committee  Let me say that, as I mentioned, our Criminal Code of course reflects that element of that legacy in paragraph 718.2(e), the requirement for what's become known as Gladue reports. The word “aboriginal” appears once in the Criminal Code, and it's in that provision that it does. Se

Public Safety committee  I want to comment that the object of the bill is not to create a uniformity in terms of the processing of claims and the ability to attach moneys that persons who are offenders might come into. We're dealing with a specific piece of federal legislation that is designed to amend a

Public Safety committee  Yes. It's important, too, that the residential school settlement process is court-supervised and subject to court orders approving the settlement agreement; hence its linkage to the way the statute is worded at present. There is a linkage between the flow of those moneys and the

Public Safety committee  Again, I'm not a lawyer and am not providing a legal opinion, but I would say that the settlement agreement and the subsidiary agreements speak for themselves as to the responsibility accepted by the various parties, and the processes that are outlined for addressing those respon

Public Safety committee  There's a large number of concepts there. I'll start with the last one. I take it that your example is pursuant to the laws of the Province of Alberta.

Public Safety committee  All right. The distinction here, firstly, is that it's a piece of federal legislation that we're discussing. Her Majesty had a significant and central role in the Indian residential school system, unlike the Government of Alberta, which may have been involved in some way, but it

Public Safety committee  I am not a lawyer, and the comments that I'm making are not a legal opinion, although I work closely with our lawyers. No, I am not—subject to check—aware of something that may make moneys an individual has not subject to some form of allocation through an order of the court.

Public Safety committee  Again, my comment, though, is that we're not discussing a process to transfer the awards of moneys under the laws of Manitoba. We're talking about a federal statute dealing with individuals who have an award being provided to them by the federal government, in part through action

Public Safety committee  Yes, those are both components of what we were saying. But also, of course—and importantly—the payments themselves are reconciliatory in their root; that is, intended to reconcile the adverse impacts upon the individual of the Indian residential school system. They're intended as

Public Safety committee  The other aspect—