Deadline nears to complete settlement
Appeal made to friends and family of former students
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, July 20, 2015
NUNAVUT
The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, in charge of ensuring residential school survivors eligible for their part in a history-making $5-billion settlement have their claims resolved, is hoping the public can help them find "lost claimants."
From Nunavut, the secretariat received 514 applications to the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), with 395 resolved. That leaves 119 cases still in progress.
"But we are struggling to get in touch with nine claimants," said senior communications consultant Michael Tansey.
Tansey adds the secretariat cannot get more specific in terms of which regions of Nunavut those nine missing claimants might be from.
The missing claimants present a dilemma.
"In some cases, we're not really sure (what's happened.) Could be people have become a little bit shy about going through with their hearing and choose to just go to ground. In some cases, people are literally out in the bush. There may be a couple of them who are perhaps deceased. Some of them may not read or write all that well and so are not aware or able to understand the material that we send them."
Tansey says the new public awareness campaign, which includes various forms of social media as well as regular communications with community organizations, is not necessarily about reaching those claimants.
"We're hoping we might reach friends or neighbours or people who are aware of someone who had their claim in the IAP and knows someone that has not completed that process."
Those claimants should be told to contact their lawyer or the secretariat "if their claim has not moved in recent months."
The secretariat is hoping word of mouth will do the trick, because its work will be winding down in the spring of 2016.
"We're on track to complete hearings for claimants who suffered abuse by the spring. We don't have a specific date in mind but we will reach a point where we will start losing staff. We will lose the ability to process claims."
Tansey say that time "is coming up faster than you think."
The most important part of the claim is the testimony of the claimant. While previously, documents needed to be in place prior to a hearing, the secretariat is now prepared to schedule all hearings and continue the collection of documents post-hearing.
"We want to make sure all claimants have the chance to tell their story before next spring. We really want to get the word out."
