'We don't know depth of depravity'
Chief adjudicator asks court to stop fees charged to prepare residential school settlement claims
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Published Monday, May 19, 2014
IQALUIT
After surviving abuse at residential schools, former students are now the victims of financial abuse at the hands of the very people they hire to help them through the individual assessment process, part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Dan Shapiro: Is taking on lawyers and form fillers involved in the individual assessment process in a Manitoba court. - |
Dan Shapiro, chief adjudicator of the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, responsible for settling claims brought forward by former students, has asked a Manitoba court to ensure survivors are no longer coerced into handing over form-filling fees of up to 25 per cent of their settlement awards.
A pilot case initiated by Shapiro was heard in the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba April 25, using a Winnipeg lawyer and a Winnipeg form-filling company as examples.
"The whole idea of the settlement process is to provide redress for historic wrongs and historic abuses, not to create more wrongs and abuses," Shapiro told Nunavut News/North.
The settlement agreement - believed, at $5 billion, to be the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history - differentiates between common experience payments and the individual assessment process (IAP).
"The IAP is for more substantive compensation for more severe claims, such as sexual abuse and physical abuse," said Sandra Omik, legal counsel for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), a party to the settlement agreement.
"The abuse endured is ... some of it is really, really horrible and, now, to be taken advantage of..."
Filling out a 20-page form detailing the specifics of the abuses they suffered is part of the IAP for claimants. In some cases, lawyers team up with form fillers or form-filling companies to complete the document.
According to Nunavut lawyer Steve Cooper, who is "actively engaged to confront this problem in Nunavut, but not exclusively in Nunavut," some form fillers also recruit in communities, sometimes convincing claimants to switch from their lawyer to their own company, and "they got very aggressive."
Cooper is part of a group of lawyers called Independent Counsel that is a party to the settlement agreement.
The IAP process allows for legal fees of up to 30 per cent of the settlement award, the first 15 per cent covered by the government of Canada and the remainder covered by the claimant, and should include any administrative fees such as for filling forms. But Cooper said it's very rare for the full 30 per cent to be charged.
Claimants he's worked for have paid anywhere from zero to 10 per cent, to top off the government's contribution.
"The (form-fillers') methods are disturbing and not appropriate," said Shapiro.
Omik said she has investigated one form-filling company that is operating, or has operated, in Nunavut.
Cooper is aware of the same one.
"Particularly in the Kivalliq," he said. "In Arviat, Rankin, Chester, there was very active form-filling going on. There was recruitment going on, in the hospital, nursing stations and health facilities."
According to Omik, besides extra fees, some of the form-filling companies make the abuse worse by changing the claimant's story.
"They add extra info without their knowledge. At the hearing, when they were asked, 'Did this happen,' the claimant would be shocked."
Award amounts are linked to the severity of abuse.
She said it's "very hard to explain to some claimants that some of these (form fillers) were untrustworthy. They hire Inuktitut-speaking people and they say, 'We can offer better services.' It's very hard to get them away from that solicitation."
Omik has researched lawyers who are licenced to practice in Nunavut and has compiled a list of established, trustworthy firms.
"They have staff to take information, the lawyers review the applications," said Omik. "They have interpreters, proper services, a proper set-up."
If the case in the Manitoba court is a success, the adjudication secretariat may be granted access to all IAP files, and lawyers will have to disclose whether they use form fillers and the nature of their financial arrangements.
"We don't know the depth of the depravity," said Cooper. "We've barely scratched the surface. We haven't had the opportunity to go through all the files."
