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Hearings scheduled for residential school survivors

Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 8, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - So far, 37 Nunavummiut have been accepted into the Independent Assessment Program for residential school survivors seeking additional compensation for abuse.

Hearings are already taking place across Canada and a total of 900 will be scheduled before the end of the month, according to Daniel Ish, chief adjudicator for the Independent Assessment Program.

"For the yearly quarter between April 1 and June 30 of this year, we will schedule approximately 900 hearings across the country."

Ish said residential school survivors must fill out an application to see if their claim would be covered under the program. Community liaison officers have been put in communities to assist with filling out forms.

"The requirements are it has to disclose acts that are covered by the settlement agreement," he said. "Also, it has to be a school that's covered. There's a list of schools that it was agreed would be covered."

Ish said once a claim was approved, one of two processes would take place. The first option would be a hearing in front of an adjudicator instead of in a courtroom.

"It's a confidential hearing; it's claimant-centred or former student-centred, in the sense that it's meant to be much kinder and gentler than what they would experience in a courtroom," he said.

An adjudicator will oversee each hearing and determine the compensation awarded to the applicant.

"They're all experienced lawyers who know how to run a hearing. They'll write a decision and that decision is binding on all the parties in Canada and the decision determines whether compensation will be paid and the amount of the compensation," Ish said.

The second option would involve a more formal court setting.

He said the decision about whether to hold the hearing in their home community or to travel to another community will depend on the wishes of the former student.

"We try to honour the wishes of the claimant, so if they want it in their own community, that's where it will happen," he said. "Many of the claimants in our experience do not want it in their own community for confidentiality reasons, and if that's the case we don't have it there, but we try to give preference to what the former student wants."

Nunavut Tunngavik president Paul Kaludjak said NTI will determine how to discuss with residential school survivors about which communities will hold the hearings.

"No doubt if that has to happen. I'm sure that's going to be a next step for people and again we will look at the best way of consulting with people if that need is there," he said.

Kaludjak said if people have to travel from their home community to the hearing, airplane tickets could be provided, depending on funding.

"We'll see how our agreement works out with the healing foundation and the federal government what process needs to taken," he said. "If we can arrange to pay for airline tickets and things like that I'm sure we can do that depending on how we arrive to our arrangement with the federal government and the arrangement that will happen down the road."

The most difficult part of the process has been finding "backup material" for the residential school applications because it requires finding a witness who knew the applicant while in residential school.

Kaludjak said the next step will be to determine how to get Nunavummiut involved in the reconciliation process.

"Next game plan is going to be to start gathering information on how we're going to partake in the reconciliation process and the healing process and try to educate the public," he said.