Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 37 - Evidence - May 8, 2013
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. to examine and report on the federal government's constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and on other matters generally relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Good evening. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on CPAC or on the Web.
My name is Lillian Dyck. I am a senator from Saskatchewan, and I am deputy chair of the committee. I will be filling in for our chair, Senator Vernon White, for the first part of this meeting as he is detained at another meeting.
The mandate of this meeting is to examine legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, generally. From time to time, we invite individuals, organizations and departments to give us an overview of issues of concern within their mandate.
In 2010, this committee released a report entitled The Journey Ahead: Report on Progress since the Government of Canada's Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools. In the report, the committee expressed interest in remaining updated on the progress of this issue. As the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is coming to a close, we felt that this would be a time good for a follow-up.
Today, we will hear testimony from individuals within Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada who deal with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issues. Would members please help me in welcoming Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, represented by Andrew Saranchuk, Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs; and Aideen Nabigon, Director General, Settlement Agreement Policy and Partnerships.
Before hearing from our witnesses, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the members of the committee who are present this evening to introduce themselves.
Senator Raine: Senator Nancy Greene Raine from British Columbia.
Senator Tannas: Senator Scott Tannas from Alberta.
Senator Seth: Asha Seth from Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Eaton: Thank you for coming tonight. Nicky Eaton, Ontario.
Senator Demers: Thank you for coming tonight. Jacques Demers, Quebec.
Senator Wells: David Wells from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Senator Lovelace Nicholas from Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick.
The Deputy Chair: Witnesses, we look forward to your presentation, which will be followed by questions from the senators. Please proceed.
Andrew Saranchuk, Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada: Honourable senators, I thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to discuss Canada's progress on its obligations vis-à-vis the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I would like to focus my remarks on the work that Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada is undertaking as we approach the last year of the commission's five-year mandate.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2008 following the court-approved Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The commission's mandate and the government's obligations vis-à-vis the commission are both set out in the settlement agreement itself, which was negotiated and agreed to by counsel for former students, legal counsel for the churches, the Assembly of First Nations, as well as Inuit representatives and the Government of Canada.
As of March 31, 2013, almost 99 per cent of the 80,000 estimated eligible former students have received Common Experience Payments totalling approximately $1.6 billion. These are the payments that are provided to eligible former students who resided at a listed Indian residential school. Eligible former students receive $10,000 for their first year or part thereof of their attendance at a listed school, plus $3,000 for each additional year or part thereof.
In addition, through the independent assessment process, which is dealing with claims of sexual or physical abuse, just under 38,000 applications were received by the September 19, 2012 deadline. Over half of these applications have already been resolved. Of those, approximately 16,000 claimants have to date received payments totalling approximately $1.9 billion.
The government recognizes that what happened to Aboriginal children in residential schools was wrong. As the Prime Minister acknowledged in his historic 2008 apology, the placement of children in these schools, away from their families and communities, in a failed attempt to rid them of their culture and heritage has had lasting effects that continue to reverberate today. Canada is committed to promoting reconciliation and to renewing and strengthening the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians.
In addition to its other obligations under the settlement agreement, a couple of which I have just mentioned, Canada has several specific obligations vis-à-vis the commission itself. First, the government is obligated to ensure the participation of high-level government officials at each of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's seven national events. Second, Canada is obligated to disclose to the commission all documents relevant to its mandate in an organized fashion. Third, on the commemoration initiative, the settlement agreement outlined a process through which the commission would receive proposals and make funding recommendations to Canada. Canada is meeting each of these obligations and in certain cases has gone beyond the requirements set out in the settlement agreement.
[Translation]
Last month in Montreal, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held the fifth of its seven national events.
These events play an important role in the process of healing by bringing former students together with government, the churches and other Canadians to share stories that lead to a greater understanding of what happened at Indian residential schools.
For each of these national events, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada has coordinated the federal presence, including participation from Health Canada, Service Canada, National Defence, Library and Archives Canada and the RCMP.
The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has actively participated in each of these national events. Our department has also hosted a federal booth to provide information and engage with former students and other attendees at these events.
[English]
Canada has provided gestures of reconciliation at each national event as well. For example, Canada has provided over $1 million to support the travel and accommodation for former students attending those national events. In addition, Canada has provided funding for Aboriginal organizations and former students to promote, display and distribute their publications at the national events.
As you may be aware, Canada's obligation to disclose documents to the commission was the subject of a recent Auditor General report. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada agrees with the Auditor General that Canada and the commission can work more closely together to ensure that the document disclosure objectives of the settlement agreement are met.
To date, Canada has disclosed approximately 3.5 million documents, including historical documents from Library and Archives Canada and active and semi-active documents from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and other government departments. All of these documents have been digitally scanned and provided to the commission in an electronic format.
Canada did not originally disclose documents held at Library and Archives Canada since Canada had a different interpretation of its obligation under the settlement agreement than did the commission. Canada's interpretation was that it was mandated to disclose all relevant active and semi-active documents, in other words, those documents that had not yet been transferred to Library and Archives Canada, and only to provide the commission with access to the documents held at Library and Archives Canada. Based on this interpretation, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada originally focused its efforts on working with other government departments to ensure that almost all relevant active and semi-active documents were made available to the commission by July 2013. Canada is on track to meet this deadline.
Regarding the documents housed at Library and Archives Canada, the commission disagreed with Canada's interpretation of its obligation and sought direction from the courts in April 2012. On January 30, 2013, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice clarified the obligation regarding the documents held at Library and Archives Canada and instructed Canada to disclose those documents in an organized manner, using the principles of reasonableness and proportionality.
In the wake of the court decision, over the past three months, Aboriginal Affairs, the commission and Library and Archives Canada have been pooling their knowledge to determine the extent of the material in the archives that require review. This is a necessary step and one that will enable the development of a clear plan that will be put in place before researchers begin pouring through the tens of thousands of boxes held at Library and Archives Canada. This cooperative effort has been fruitful and should help minimize the time and cost involved in producing the documents relevant to the commission's mandate.
[Translation]
Another area in which we have worked with the commission is the $20 million commemoration initiative of the settlement agreement, which provides former students, their families and communities the opportunity to pay tribute to, honour, educate, remember and memorialize their experiences by acknowledging the systemic impacts of the residential school system.
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and the commission are jointly responsible for the development and implementation of commemoration. All of the funding has now been allocated to 144 primarily aboriginal organizations and will be spent by March 2014.
[English]
Over and above the legal obligations I just mentioned, Canada has also provided the commission with $8 million in funding, in addition to the $60 million provided for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, to assist with its costs of administering a federal department. Aboriginal Affairs has also provided up to $1 million annually to the commission for in-kind administrative and corporate services, for a total of up to $5 million over five years, from 2008 to 2013. This commitment was recently extended to July 2014 for the purpose of covering the salaries of five employees of the commission.
Aboriginal Affairs is also working closely with the commission to assist with the production, translation and distribution of its final report. Canada is committed to providing financial support to the commission for this endeavour.
In 2012, the commission issued its interim report. I would like to note that Canada has already responded to many of the recommendations in that interim report. For example, we have sent copies of the Prime Minister's apology to some 18,000 elementary and secondary schools across the country, as recommended by the commission.
Since this past November, the leaders of each of the parties to the settlement agreement, including the churches and the government, have been meeting regularly and have identified priority areas on which they are focusing efforts to help the commission fulfill its mandate. There is a commitment at the most senior level of our department to support these discussions, which have become even more critical as the end of the commission's mandate draws near.
[Translation]
In closing, I would like to reiterate that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an important component of the reconciliation process between aboriginal people and other Canadians.
We look forward to continuing to assist the commission with its important mandate and to meeting Canada's obligations as set out in the settlement agreement.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms. Nabigon, will you be making remarks?
Aideen Nabigon, Director General, Settlement Agreement Policy and Partnerships, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada: No, thank you.
The Deputy Chair: We will open the floor to questions from senators.
Senator Demers: Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very clear and understood.
This initiative is about reconciliation. Has Canada done anything over and above what the courts have ordered with the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement?
Mr. Saranchuk: In addition to the court-ordered obligations and in the spirit of reconciliation, Canada has supported the TRC in several other ways. I mentioned some of them in my remarks. We have provided $8 million to the TRC to assist with the cost of administering a federal department. We provided up to $1 million annually to assist with in-kind corporate and administrative services, and we are working very closely with the commission in terms of its final report.
We have also committed and provided over $1 million to Aboriginal organizations so that they could support the travel and accommodation of former students so that they can attend these national events. There have been five national events already across the country. It is important that students can make their way to those events, and Canada has done that.
Over and above that, Canada has marked the sad history of residential schools with the installation of a stained glass window over the west entrance of Parliament. This was designed by renowned Metis artist Christi Belcourt, and it commemorates the sad legacy of Indian residential schools. It provides a unique opportunity for parliamentarians and for visitors of Parliament to learn more about the history. It is hoped that it will provide and provoke questions and thoughts about this sad history.
As part of that, we have also engaged in certain educational materials that we have sent to the over 18,000 schools in Canada to explain what Canada has done in this respect.
Senator Demers: Thank you very much. That was well answered.
Senator Eaton: In The Journey Ahead, Justice Sinclair remarked that apart from the monetary things that have to be done, ``. . . we must find a way to resolve that flawed relationship and establish a new sound relationship.'' That sounds like a formidable challenge. I am sure have you thought about it. Do you have any thoughts you would like to share with us about that?
Mr. Saranchuk: That is a difficult question. The mandate or role of the commission itself is challenging, and reconciliation and truth will not necessarily be found in the five years of its mandate. I would suggest that reconciliation has to happen on a number of levels. It probably has to happen both at a societal level and hopefully at an individual level.
We hope that through the Common Experience Payments and the independent assessment process that we can process them as quickly as possible so that former students can hopefully experience some sort of reconciliation with the government and the churches on that individual level. However, I would note that money cannot make someone whole for the things that were done to them, necessarily, and it is in that sense that it is, in its own way, a gesture of trying to reconcile on that individual level.
Regarding the broader, societal issue, I understand that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be coming to you and making a presentation. Some of that is probably squarely within their mandate.
Senator Eaton: It is an interesting problem, and I was very pleased when I read the report to see that the judge did not take a short-sighted point of view. He was thinking along generational lines. I wonder whether people of my generation, or even a bit younger, are really too old to matter, and we should really be putting more concentration on the younger people and on people in schools, on both the Aboriginal side and the non-Aboriginal side, to form a real Canadian bond between the next generations coming up.
Mr. Saranchuk: I think you are absolutely right. I can advise you that this is the discussion of what I called the All- Parties Meeting, where all the heads of the parties get together every month or two — or two months now — to discuss these sorts of issues. They are different working groups that report back. One of them is on outreach education. I am sure the chair of the commission and the commission can report to you on what exactly they are doing vis-à-vis the provincial curriculum in which schools. However, I know that is one of the themes they are working hard on.
I can advise that even though I have a school-age daughter, one of the things I sometimes question is why she has not heard about residential schools as part of her curriculum.
Senator Eaton: The residential schools situation was such a negative thing. However, I sit on the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and quite a few First Nations come to talk to us about education and forestry, for instance, depending on the report.
If we are to have two streams of education — one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal — they should begin to recognize or understand each other's form of education to begin with. In other words, we do not want another two ``solitudes'' going forward, do we?
Mr. Saranchuk: That is right.
Ms. Nabigon: I absolutely agree with you. I think reconciliation has to start at a fairly young age. Residential schools can be a difficult issue for young kids, but we have several partners. We have the Advocacy and Public Information Program. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has invested $28 million over the last seven or eight years. We have an Aboriginal partner called the Legacy of Hope Foundation to which we have provided funding to create projects targeted at school children of all ages. It has been extremely popular with teachers. We are continuing to try to find funding; we are running out a little bit of money.
They are also trying to partner with provincial partners to ensure that every school can have a copy of the apology. There is an Edu-Kit, as it is called. Aboriginal Affairs has provided a package to 18,000 schools across the country recently with the apology, some products that we had done around the stained glass window, and some other educational tools that teachers are happy to get and can integrate into their curriculum to ensure that children are at least starting to learn about residential schools.
Senator Eaton: I hope about other things, also.
Aboriginals have a different emphasis on certain things than non-Aboriginal schools, and I hope that we learn going forward and not just stop at residential schools. I hope there is a way of learning between the generations going forward. I think that is very important.
Ms. Nabigon: I agree.
The Deputy Chair: I will ask a supplementary question to your question before we move on to Senator Lovelace Nicholas.
Ms. Nabigon, you were talking about an Edu-Kit that has been developed to work in the provincial curricula across the country. Before you developed the kit, did you ask the provinces if they have such a curriculum on residential schools?
Ms. Nabigon: The Legacy of Hope Foundation has been meeting with the provincial ministers. Some of them do and some of them do not. As you probably know, the level of education when it comes to this kind of thing is different in the provinces. There has been some good work done in the N.W.T., Saskatchewan and in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but it differs. The work is ongoing. It is a challenge for some of the provinces, but we continue to work with them, as does the Legacy of Hope.
The Deputy Chair: I am from Saskatchewan. One of my very first trips in 2005 when I was appointed was to the friendship centre in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. What did they give me? It was the curriculum for residential schools from kindergarten to grade 12. That was quite astounding to me; it is sitting in my office. I am wondering if people are using it still, because it has been developed.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Correct me if I am wrong, but residential school survivors had to sign a waiver of some sort. Would you tell me what that waiver was?
Ms. Nabigon: I am not sure what you are referring to, senator. We can look into it. Are you talking about the Common Experience Payment or the independent assessment process?
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: When they first made their complaint, I believe they were made to sign a waiver either not to sue the government or maybe it has been stipulated that this was cultural genocide. They had to sign a piece of paper. Could you forward the waiver to the committee?
Mr. Saranchuk: A number of lawsuits preceded the settlement agreement being signed and were the genesis of the settlement agreement being signed. Because it is a court-approved process, I am assuming there is likely paperwork that requires people to sign off. We can undertake to get back to you on the specific answer, but I am relatively positive that that is what is being described.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thank you.
I have been approached by several Indian day students. They felt they were not fairly represented because they also went through a denial of practising their culture, speaking their language, being discriminated against and humiliated in front of other students. Can you explain?
Mr. Saranchuk: One of the difficulties often encountered is the fact that the 2007 settlement agreement only applied to the 130 institutions listed in it and that other institutions akin to Indian residential schools are not part of the agreement.
I would stress again that the agreement was not the federal government itself acting unilaterally; it was the result of negotiations with the churches because, at the end of this agreement, at least 50 church entities signed and a lot of lawyers. The AFN and Inuit representatives were there as well with the churches and the federal government.
There was this list of 130 schools. There is a process in the settlement agreement to add schools. It is called Article 12. Canada has added seven schools since then, and the courts have added two. Although that might sound like a reasonable number, and is reasonable, there have been over 1,000 schools that people have asked to add to the settlement agreement. There are a number of schools out there that might seem similar.
The principles of Article 12 are that children must have been placed in a residence for purposes of education by or under the authority of the federal government, and the federal government must have at least been jointly responsible for the operation of the residence. In the day school situation that you are describing, senator, there would not have been a residence. When you have provincially operated schools, they would also not have fallen within the mandate of the settlement agreement.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: These schools were on federal Indian land.
Mr. Saranchuk: I am not sure of the circumstances, but I agree there are a number of claims out there. The only other thing I would add is that a number of these are currently before the courts, either to add to the actual settlement agreement or have another class action. There are a number of schools that people often raise that, from their perspective, should be within the settlement agreement.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thank you for your answers.
Senator Raine: I know that a school was built in Inuvik. It was a fairly new town in the 1950s. That school had two residences run by the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. The students came in from the northern part of the Northwest Territories and were resident in the school. The school was a combination day school and hostel. Would those hostels qualify for the truth and reconciliation program? It is quite possible that they did not have any problems there.
Ms. Nabigon: For the truth and reconciliation programs, they do not differentiate. As far as the national events and other events that the TRC is holding, yes, anyone can go to those events.
I do not want to speak on behalf of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think you have invited them to attend here. However, they certainly welcome people and they are encouraging Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal day students.
Senator Raine: For the purpose of the commission, you had to be in a residential school, or could it be a residence?
Ms. Nabigon: I think you may be talking about the compensation programs.
Senator Raine: Yes, exactly.
Ms. Nabigon: You had to fit the two criteria as laid out under Article 12 of the settlement agreement.
Senator Raine: In other words, the classrooms had to be in the same complex as the dormitories.
Ms. Nabigon: Right, you had to be living at the school. You had to be placed in a residence away from home, under the authority of the federal government, and the federal government was jointly responsible or solely responsible for the running of the school. You are correct; you had to be resident there.
If I understand your question correctly, you could not be living in one place and going to school somewhere else.
Mr. Saranchuk: If you want to provide us with the name of the school, we can get back to you.
Senator Raine: I will do that. It is the Inuvik school, but there were two residences. I do not know whether the students were placed in there or chose to go to the residence.
The Deputy Chair: I thought you said that more than 1,000 schools requested to be added to the list. Is that what you said?
Mr. Saranchuk: Yes, that is my understanding. There were more than 1,000 institutions, and closer to 1,500 is my understanding.
The Deputy Chair: It seems like a very large number compared to 130 being on the list.
Ms. Nabigon: Those schools included schools in South Africa, colleges and universities. There were a lot of schools. There were day schools, as we have talked a little bit about, but there were some that in no way fit the criteria of a residential school.
The Deputy Chair: Have they not requested after you came up with the official list?
Mr. Saranchuk: Yes, the list of 130. People had the ability to ask afterwards whether or not a school could be added.
Ms. Nabigon: There was a list of 130 schools that were initially included in the settlement agreement when it was signed in 2007, and then there were Article 12 schools. Some of them are still before the courts, but nine have been added pursuant to that.
Senator Wells: I am not sure who this question is directed to, so I will let you decide who is best equipped to answer. We all well remember the Prime Minister's historic apology that you referenced and we all recall that with relief, appreciation and a true sense of advancement of the relationship between the Government of Canada and the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.
I know that significant amounts of money have been spent. Going back to Senator Eaton's comment, reconciliation at this level needs to be generational to have success. I know in the Government of Canada programs are really based on funding envelopes over time frames that are not generational. What kind of challenge does this present when you are looking for lasting solutions in programs that are not necessarily generational and certainly funding envelopes that are not generational?
Mr. Saranchuk: That is a very good question. It does present challenges. For the purposes of this, we focused a little bit on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and what is occurring.
I think you are quite right, and this is what I was trying to get at when I talked about a broader societal level. The government is doing its best to improve the socio-economic conditions of Aboriginal peoples. As this committee would know probably better than anyone, that is a very difficult challenge and it is not something that is going to occur overnight. I am not sure I can do much better justice than that to your question.
Senator Wells: Maybe I will ask it this way: Is there a longer-term strategy that extends beyond the funding envelope, a strategy that has obviously not been implemented yet?
Mr. Saranchuk: The funding question is that this government is doing its best to target the issues. Education is one of the main goals of this government, as are other social and economic indicators so they can improve the integration of Aboriginal peoples into the economy, where possible, and improve their socio-economic way of life generally.
Senator Wells: The foundational issues?
Mr. Saranchuk: Correct. It starts with things like education, water and housing where people live. The difficulty, as this committee knows, is that trying to do all those things at the same time presents challenges.
Senator Seth: I understand that the Auditor General has concluded that both the TRC and AANDC failed to meet their mission to create a complete historical record on the Indian residential schools and their legacy. When do you think we will reach this goal? Is it possible by July 2014? To your knowledge, how many relevant documents have been submitted so far to the TRC? What would be the cost for finishing this project?
Mr. Saranchuk: Regarding document disclosure, as I noted, Canada had a different interpretation than the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for those documents that are housed at Library and Archives Canada.
I should note that there are generally two classes of documents. There are those documents that are housed still at each individual department and are either being used actively, or they might be in filing cabinets there and are semi- active, or they might be on their way to being sent to archives but still with the department. Since 2010, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs has been tasked with coordinating to get those documents from those departments over to the TRC, and we have made considerable progress on that. Right now, 1.5 million documents have been sent to the TRC from there. We are on track to have almost all of those active and semi-active documents disclosed to the TRC by this July, so one year before its mandate is scheduled to finish.
The issue of the LAC documents is where we had a different interpretation. In reading the settlement agreement, our interpretation was that we had to compile and provide these active and semi-active documents but only needed to provide access to the TRC to go into Library and Archives Canada. We were told by the court that we were wrong. We are working very hard on a plan, jointly with the TRC, I might add, whereby we can disclose those documents.
It will be a challenge, as you might imagine. We are talking over a century's worth of documents at Library and Archives Canada. To give you a scope of the challenge — and this is in the Auditor General's report — somewhere between 20 to 24 kilometres of those bankers boxes, if they were put next to each other, might contain potentially relevant documents. You do not want to start going into those boxes and opening them because you could end up spending a lot of time. Our goal has been to work jointly with Library and Archives Canada and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look at the indexes that were filed with those boxes in the 1800s, the early 1900s, the 1950s, to figure out whether or not we can reduce the extent. We are on the cusp of completing a scoping exercise with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that we hope has reduced the scope of that substantially.
When that is done, our goal is to have costing and then to move to secure some money and treat this like a project to start disclosing those documents to the TRC. It will be a challenge. There are a lot of documents there, but we are committed to disclosing documents in accordance with the court decision.
The Deputy Chair: When do you anticipate that the scoping exercise will be done?
Mr. Saranchuk: The scoping exercise is substantially complete. I understand that the TRC has the document that we have worked on jointly, but they have held the pen on it and they are going to send it to us very soon for final comments. We will then proceed with costing and then on to the next stages of the project.
I would note that we have worked hard on that scoping. As you can imagine, when these departments, for the last 100 years, have sent their boxes of documents to Library and Archives Canada, if they were not the Department of Indian Affairs or Aboriginal Affairs, they would not have noted on the box or their list that the documents necessarily contained records relating to Indian residential schools. They would note that they were human resource records or something. Our challenge with respect to those collections has been to figure out whether or not we can reduce the scope of boxes that will require opening, because it is the opening of boxes that really will lead to a higher cost and a greater degree of time being spent on this project.
Senator Raine: In looking at the recommendations from the interim report, I am wondering if you can run through these recommendations quickly and tell us if they have been done, will happen, if there is still talking, et cetera. There are a lot of recommendations. For instance, Recommendation 14 is that the Government of Canada distribute to every secondary school a framed copy of the statement of apology. I am thinking that would be fairly easy to do.
Mr. Saranchuk: In fact, with respect to that recommendation, although unframed, we have provided copies to 18,000 schools.
I am just looking quickly here at the recommendations. Ms. Nabigon and I will try to take you through as you requested.
Ms. Nabigon: You mentioned Recommendation 14?
Senator Raine: If it is not too difficult. Maybe this is not an appropriate way of doing it. Maybe you could send us a breakdown.
Ms. Nabigon: We could run through it quickly. Some of these were for us and some for the churches and other parties. We would be happy to follow up with a list of what we have done to meet the recommendations.
Mr. Saranchuk: It is a very good question for two reasons. First, all of the parties and their leaders met last month to actually discuss the progress that had been made on the recommendations. We had almost a half day scheduled for that. Heading into that half day, we decided to constrain the scope of what we were going to talk about and what needed to be done to only a number of those recommendations.
The recommendations are far-reaching. There are some very good recommendations in here. As Ms. Nabigon said, they relate not just to the federal government, but to churches. They sometimes do not relate just to the government or churches but to all Canadians or others. We responded to the commission with a letter from the minister last year on our views and what we had done on a number of the recommendations.
Senator Raine: No one wants to see all this work that has been done over the last few years wind up in a report on a dusty shelf and not move forward.
You are absolutely right that education is key, but education goes both ways. I notice in the recommendations that there is quite a bit of talk about health and wellness centres and ongoing counselling. I have been doing a study on epigenetics, and they are now finding that early childhood trauma can leave genetic markings that scar you for generations. However, if early childhood counselling and therapy is done, these genetic markers can be changed.
There is a lot of work to be done. I think everyone is still hoping that we can move forward. It is not going to be easy, but there is a real will to change things for Aboriginal people.
Mr. Saranchuk: I know the commissioner has put a lot of thought into the recommendations, and they are currently putting a lot of thought into the recommendations for their final report. I understand that they will be appearing before you, and I am sure they will be able to provide a much better explanation of some of those recommendations.
Senator Raine: In terms of Aboriginal Affairs, when you see your name is on the list as being responsible for the delivery of this recommendation, how does it move forward from there? Does it become part of the budgeting process? Does an expertise build up within Aboriginal Affairs to deal with these issues properly?
Mr. Saranchuk: That is a very good question. To date, what we have done is discuss these interim recommendations. However, they are interim recommendations — and maybe this is wrong — but we would expect that many of them will find their way into the final report.
I will say that a lot of resources in our sector are spent on trying to deliver the Common Experience Payments as soon as possible and the independent assessment process payments. Not to put too fine a point on it, but many of the former students are quite frail or elderly, and it is important that they receive to the extent possible, before they pass away, that acknowledgement and that engagement from the Government of Canada on those issues.
The Deputy Chair: I have questions with regard to the documents. In your presentation, you mentioned that the claims of 99 per cent of former students have been settled. However, when it comes to the independent assessment process, have a larger number of claims not been settled? Is the rejection rate or the failure of a former student to prove his or her case related to the issue of documents that have gone missing? For example, if the person is 75 years old, he or she may have gone to a residential school, and those documents would have been stored in Library and Archives Canada and would not have been active or semi-active. Are the documents in Library and Archives Canada complete? Have some been disposed of or shredded? Is that related to the issue of former students not being able to get compensation because of missing documents?
Mr. Saranchuk: I want to clarify that the 99 per cent is with respect to $1.6 billion for the Common Experience Payment and has been paid out to 78,859 applicants. That number represents 99 per cent of the estimated former students who would be eligible at the time. In fact, 105,000 applications were received, and what would occur is what we were talking about earlier at this committee. People might have applied for a Common Experience Payment and been rejected because they did not go to one of the schools listed in the agreement. The 99 per cent was the original estimate, if you will.
That was your initial question. You posed a more specific question about destruction of documents.
The Deputy Chair: I was wondering if that was related to anyone who was rejected even from the Common Experience Payment.
Ms. Nabigon: No former students were rejected for the Common Experience Payment as a result of missing records. I know there has been a lot of media on that recently. The Government of Canada in the early days of negotiating the settlement agreement worked very hard with provinces, territories and everyone that could possibly have records in their files on residential schools to ensure that that would not be an issue.
Applicants who apply for a Common Experience Payment are not rejected solely on the basis of missing records. If they apply and say, for example, that they have gone to a certain school for 10 years, and we know that for whatever reason there was a fire in the school and all the records are missing for a year in the middle of that 10 years, we give the former student the benefit of the doubt.
If there is nothing, no record, we will work with the former student to try to find other evidence. We are not just paying out Common Experience Payments when there is no evidence that a person went to a residential school, but they do not get declined based on missing records. They just do not.
The Deputy Chair: Does that same rule apply for the independent assessment process?
Ms. Nabigon: That is a very different process.
I want to come back to something that you mentioned in your earlier comments, Madam Chair. We did miscalculate. We were almost dead on. As Mr. Saranchuk said with regard to the Common Experience Payment, we have paid out 99 per cent of estimated living students, so with regard to that estimate, we had a really good handle on how many students were living when we were negotiating the settlement agreement.
What we did not have a good idea of was the level of abuse. The independent assessment is a compensation program for former students who experienced serious sexual and physical abuse at the schools. It was based on studies that were done on abuse in similar institutions, and the estimate was approximately 12,500. As of the deadline of September 19, 2012, we had actually searched more than triple that amount. It is a very different process. It is an ADR. We have adjudicators that have hearings with the students. If the perpetrator is available, he or she can testify. It is much more rigorous than the Common Experience Payment, so it is a different process.
The missing records are not as relevant in the case of the independent assessment process.
Mr. Saranchuk: The estimate, as Ms. Nabigon says, was off with respect to the independent assessment process, namely, the estimate of how many people would have been or might have been abused in the schools. The 12,500 came from academic studies and other studies of institutional child abuse in other institutions, where the number was estimated to be 15 per cent, and 15 per cent of 80,000 is more or less 12,500. That was how that number was arrived at.
In fact, as Ms. Nabigon says, the number of people who have put in applications to be part of the independent assessment process is now 38,000, so at least triple what we had identified. Quite frankly, it is closing in on half of the people who went to residential schools. It is a shocking and very sobering number, as you might imagine.
The Deputy Chair: I am still not completely clear. Let me ask it again.
Let us assume that I put a claim in through the independent assessment process and that I went to a school where the documents had for some reason gone missing or had been destroyed. If I had all the other bits and pieces that need to go with that process, would the fact that there were missing documents affect my ability to be compensated?
Ms. Nabigon: No, you would still have a hearing.
Mr. Saranchuk: It would make it more difficult, I think.
The Deputy Chair: It would impact on the proof that you actually went to that school, if there were no evidence that the school existed.
Mr. Saranchuk: There would have been evidence that the school existed in the sense that it was one of the 130 that were added. However, you are quite right that there could have been gaps in their records, although I am not familiar with it.
The Deputy Chair: Considering that the TRC's mandate will be over fairly soon and given that many more cases, as you said, of more extensive abuse have come forward, you are having to go through kilometres worth of documents to determine what needs to be transferred back to the research centre. Is there any chance that the mandate of the TRC will be extended, given that there was a late start and then there is this complication not really understanding that you were also supposed to be looking at archived documents?
Mr. Saranchuk: I am afraid that I am probably not in a position to comment on whether their mandate should or should not be extended. I would note that whatever view the government might have about that, their mandate was set out in the settlement agreement approved by the courts, by former students, by the AFN and by the churches. There were other parties to the agreement who would have to agree on extending the mandate.
I would also note that, yes, the document production will be challenging vis-à-vis the documents at Library and Archives Canada, but the settlement agreement always envisaged that the TRC would have a set life and that the independent assessment process would take as long as that took. I am trying to say that not all parts of the settlement agreement were and are scheduled to end on the same date.
The Deputy Chair: It looks like you have the scoping done on these documents at Library and Archives Canada. However, if it looks like that will take longer than the mandate of the TRC, what do you think will happen? You have piles of documents to go through. Is it part of the ongoing discussion with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that somehow the process of archives and digitizing these documents continues, even though the TRC may not exist? What will happen to all those records?
Mr. Saranchuk: That is a very good question. We are focused right now, as you might imagine, on doing all we can to try to get those documents from LAC flowing. I might add that although we have not had any discussions with the TRC on that, the TRC has the ability under the settlement agreement to create not a successor organization but a repository of their documents. They have been in discussions and as I understand have chosen an institution that will be called the ``National Research Centre'' to hold those documents. I do not think it is any secret that it is the University of Manitoba. They are well along in those discussions.
Of course, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will have more to say about this in terms of details, but there are issues with respect to turning those documents over to the University of Manitoba. They are working hard with Library and Archives Canada and the University of Manitoba on those issues.
I want to put on the record that there is another issue. The historical record has been created, so it is hoped that it will be preserved for all Canadians and future generations. As you say, it would not just cease to exist.
Senator Tannas: On the schools that were added to the list after the signing, are there any differences in the characteristics of those settlements or the circumstances? Could you tell us what you know about the ones you mentioned that were trying to get in, that were campaigning to be brought in under the agreement and that were in the courts?
Mr. Saranchuk: I am not an expert on this but I will do my best to answer your question. In terms of the criteria to add schools, a process was envisaged by all parties that other schools might have wanted to be added. As Ms. Nabigon and I said, they focused on the residential nature of those schools. The children would have been placed in a residence for purposes of education, and the federal government, not the provincial governments, must have been at least jointly responsible for the operation of that residence.
Sometimes one of those criteria might not have been met and children might have been placed in an institution that was run solely by churches, which was not necessarily covered by the settlement agreement.
Seven schools have been added because Canada has done further research. In fact, a school was added just last summer called Mistassini in Quebec. The court has approved that, and those students who went there during the appropriate period are being advised that they can apply for the Common Experience Payment and the independent assessment process.
A number of schools have been added. I have a list of seven schools here. The courts have also added two schools recently in Ontario: Crystal Lake and Stirland Lake.A number of other challenges are under way. Some people have disagreed vis-à-vis the five schools and have ongoing court challenges to add those five schools to the settlement agreement.
In addition, a number of lawsuits are ongoing with respect to schools that are not trying to get into this settlement agreement per se but have brought their own actions against other schools. You might be familiar. For some schools in Labrador the process is before the courts.
The Deputy Chair: Seeing no further questions, I thank our witnesses on behalf of the whole committee. Thank you, Mr. Saranchuk and Ms. Nabigon, for answering all our questions.
(The committee adjourned.)