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UNEDITED COPY Thursday, February 12, 2009 * * * ¿ (0900) [English] The Chair
(Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): Good morning. [Français] Bonjour,
mesdames et messieurs. C'est la quatrième rencontre du
Comité permanent des affaires autochtones et du
développement du grand Nord. [English] Order of the
day, today we have presentations, briefings, for the first hour from the
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development regarding the Indian
residential schools section of the department. Starting at 10 o'clock we'll be
receiving a briefing on the truth and reconciliation commission. We have two
independent hours. We'll proceed through a first round for each. We have with
us this morning for the first hour Caroline Davis, assistant deputy minister
for the resolution and individual affairs sector, Paul Vickery, who is acting
director policy, and Linda Barber, director general policy and partnerships. Ms. Davis
will continue. We usually look to 10 minutes, followed by questions from
members. Carry on.
Ms.
Caroline Davis (Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs
Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development): Thank you. Good
morning. I'd like to
thank the chair and members of the committee for inviting us here today to talk
about Indian residential schools and the work that the government is doing to
attempt to resolve the sad legacy that the schools have left behind. [Français] Je
commencerai par un préambule dans lequel je brosserai
un bref historique. Je parlerai ensuite des principaux
éléments de la Convention des règlements relative aux pensionnats indiens.
[English] If I could
correct the record, sir, I have Paul Vickery, who is senior general counsel of
the Department of Justice. Linda Barber, who is director
general policy partnerships and communications, and Patricia Power, who is
acting director of policy and strategic planning. The three of
us are with resolution and individual affairs sector of Indian and Northern
Affairs Canada, and Paul is with the Department of Justice. Following
Confederation in 1867, the Government of Canada began to play a role in the
development and administration of Indian residential schools. By the 1920s, the
government had assumed control of the Indian residential schools operations, of
which there were about 132 schools over time situated in 7 out of 10 provinces
and all 3 territories. In many cases the government operated the schools in
partnership with religious organizations and often employees of the government,
including Indian agents and the RCMP, compelled attendance at the schools. Aside from
education, one of the stated intents of the Indian residential schools policy
was to assimilate the children into the dominant culture. The policy resulted
in over 150,000 children being removed from their homes and raised in
isolation, away from the influence and comfort of their families, communities,
traditions and cultures. Conditions in the school were often harsh, and in some
cases even abusive. While most
Indian residential schools ceased to operate by the mid-1970s, the last
federally-run school in On May 30,
2005, the Government of Canada appointed former Supreme Court Justice, the
Honourable Frank lacobucci, as the government's representative. His mandate was
to lead discussions with legal counsel for former students, the Assembly of
First Nations, and church entities toward a fair and lasting resolution of the
legacy of Indian residential schools. These discussions culminated in the
Indian Residential Schools Agreement, which was signed by all parties and
approved by the government on May 10, 2006. All nine
jurisdictional courts approved the agreement, and it would become the largest
class action settlement in Canadian history. The
agreement includes five components: ¿ (0905) [Français] Le paiement
d'expérience commune, CPEC, prévoit le paiement d'une somme forfaitaire en
reconnaissance de l'expérience vécue par les anciens élèves qui ont été retirés
de la famille, de la communauté, et soustraits à leurs soins. Ce paiement
augmente progressivement selon la période de temps passée dans un pensionnat. Un fonds en fiducie de 1,9
milliard de dollars a été établi au titre de PS7. [English] The
independent assessment process provides additional individual compensation for
physical and sexual abuse under an alternative dispute resolution model. Awards
range from $5,000 to $430,000. Measures to
support healing include a $125 million endowment to the Aboriginal Healing
Foundation, and a Health Canada support program of $95 million over five years,
which offers counselling and emotional support. Twenty
million dollars will be used to fund commemoration initiatives. The last
major component is the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, with a budget of $60 million. If I could,
I'll talk briefly about progress to date. Implementation of the Indian
Residential Schools Settlement Agreement commenced on September 19, 2007. In
collaboration with Service Canada, 97,000 applications for common experience
payments have been received for review by our office. Seventy-two thousand have
been approved for payment, and cheques have been sent out amounting to $1.48
billion, which is an average of $20,500 per claimant. We have an extensive
research team, with access to a computer assisted research system, and they
prepare careful decisions on each individual application. To date,
20,000 people have been found to be ineligible, either because their school is
not on the agreed upon list, because they were day school students, or because
we were unable to find records of their attendance. The
government is making every effort to ensure former students receive the
compensation for which they are eligible, including a reconsideration process.
Twenty-two thousand people have applied for reconsideration, and we have
completed 9,000 reviews. Assessment of applications is intended to confirm
eligibility, not to reduce it. In addition,
applicants can appeal directly to the National Administration Committee in the
event that their request for reconsideration has been denied, in whole or in
part. The National Administration Committee oversees the implementation of the
agreement on behalf of the courts. There have been 1,100 appeals made to date. [Français] Conscient
des répercussions que la mise en oeuvre de la convention de règlement est appelée à avoir, le gouvernement du [English] A national
Indian residential schools crisis line has been set up to provide support for
former residential school students. The crisis line is staffed by trained
counsellors who are available to answer calls from former students and their
families, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The phone number for the crisis
line is 1-866-925-4419. Should
former students or their family members require additional support, they are
referred to Health At
implementation date, the agreement included an agreed upon list of 130
institutions. All decisions on requests for the addition of institutions to the
schools list are guided by Article 12 of the agreement. The criteria
for adding an institution to the list are a) the child was placed in a residence
away from the family home by or under the authority of Ta date, the
department has received over 8,500 requests to add approximately 1,250
institutions to the agreement. Two schools have been added to the list and we
continue to process approximately 15 requests per month. A word about the apology. ¿ (0910) [Français] Le 11 juin 2008,
le premier ministre du Canada a pris la parole à la Chambre des communes afin
d'adresser, au nom de tous les Canadiens, des excuses complètes aux anciens
élèves des pensionnats indiens. Par la suite, chaque chef des partis d'opposition
a aussi formulé des excuses. [English] Present on
the floor of the House were the leaders of the national aboriginal
organizations, who also addressed the House in acceptance of the apology. The
event was transmitted to a crowd of several thousand who gathered on Parliament
Hill, and broadcast across the nation. Survivors of the residential schools
watched with anticipation from coast to coast to coast. The apology
garnered international attention. In November 2008 The truth
and reconciliation committee, or TRC, is the cornerstone of the agreement. The
commission will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between
aboriginal people and other Canadians. As you most likely know, the TRC has
experienced some challenges with the resignation of its chairman and the
resignation of two commissioners, which will be effective on June 1, 2009. The
enlistment of Justice Frank Iacobucci to oversee the selection of the new
commissioners gives us confidence that the process will be underway soon for
the sake of survivors and their families. In the interim, the secretariat has
continued to lay the groundwork for the seven national events that are part of
the settlement agreement. Getting
underway sooner rather than later is indeed critical to regaining the trust and
confidence of the survivors, their families, and communities. As I'm certain
you can appreciate, they have been waiting for some time to have their opportunity
to speak to their individual and collective experiences. Of equal importance,
we believe that We have high
hopes for the TRC and its role in fulfilling the renewal of the relationship
with aboriginal people in
The
Chair: Merci, Ms. Davis. [Français] Nous allons
procéder aux questions des députés. Monsieur
Russell. [English]
Mr. I want to
pick up on a couple of points, first of all, on the addition of schools. There
were many people who felt left out of the initial agreement, many of them have
expressed this to me personally and shared their stories of hurt and pain, and
want to reconcile as well, individually and collectively. You say
you've added two schools. Can you tell us which two schools those are?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, I can.
Mr. In the last
campaign the Conservative government said a re-elected Conservative government
will also commit to pursuing bilateral agreements with the provinces to address
the wrongs of the residential schools era for aboriginals attending similar
schools not covered by the Indian residential schools settlement agreement.
They were re-elected, unfortunately. Has this
direction gone to the department? Has the department taken up any of that type
of process at all? ¿ (0915)
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, the minister has begun discussions with some of his
colleagues. I heard very brief reports back from those discussions and they
will be continuing. If I could perhaps add that the government has signed a
protocol with the Métis, which also has this as a subject for discussion
between the Métis and the government.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, that's right.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: I'm not aware of that, sir, I'm sorry. We can get the
answer to you on that.
Mr. However, if
we're talking about reconciliation in a really substantive and formative way,
has the department made any fundamental changes in terms of its legislative or
policy approaches to give some substance to the apology? It's one thing to have
the apology and have it accepted, and it was a historic event, but are we doing
something beyond the apology outside of just the TRC? Is the department
undertaking any substantive actions internally to address how it does business
with aboriginal people?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, the department has a couple of things in play. One is
that we had a reorganization this summer and a sector
has been given responsibility for developing partnerships with aboriginal
people. I think that the record would speak for itself in that we do continue
to deliver real, measurable and tangible results for aboriginal people. We're
moving forward on a number of key initiatives including housing, which was
included in the budget that was tabled recently, water quality, education and
child and family services. We have also moved forward on settling specific
claims and delivering protection for on-reserve human rights. I do believe that
reconciliation is at the heart of the methods that we're using to move forward.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: The matrimonial real property legislation does address a
very difficult gap that exists between the rights that people have living
off-reserve and the ones on-reserve with regards to marital and relationship
breakdowns. The government regards this as being a very serious issue and it's
reintroduced the legislation just recently. There was a lot of consultation.
There was a group discussion led by a first nations
person in the run-up to the preparation of the legislation. I think the
reintroduction does underline the government's commitment to resolving this.
Mr.
The
Chair: Mr. Russell, we should try and keep it on topic here. We have
officials here from the resolutions section. I'm prepared to give a wide berth
here in terms of discussion, but we do need to keep it on topic as well.
Mr. ¿ (0920)
The
Chair: Of course not.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Just give me a second here. By the middle of January, we'd
received 9,361 claims and the number of decisions rendered is 1,503. So far, if
you're interested, the compensation awarded is about $94 million.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: If I could perhaps add--I don't think I made this clear in
my notes at the beginning--the independent assessment process is run separately
from myself. I'm not responsible for it. The gentleman
who runs it reports directly to the deputy minister. But I have
been speaking with him because clearly we are very much involved in the
process, in that the research that My colleague
has told me that he is gearing up to increase the number of hearings that are
going to be happening each month as we go into next month and the following
fiscal year. So I hope you will see improvements in that.
Mr.
The
Chair: We are out of time. I allowed you a bit of extra time there, Mr.
Russell, just to finish up. [Français] Nous allons poursuivre. Monsieur
Lévesque.
M. Yvon
Lévesque (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, BQ): Je partagerai mon temps avec mon collègue, Marc. Madame
Davis, pourriez-vous nous dire, suite au regret manifesté par le premier
ministre, de quelle manière la Commission a pu
modifier son approche dans le règlement? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We regarded the apology as being very key
to the moving forward of all our operations and we do take it very seriously in
everything we do. I think
reconciliation operates at very many different levels. It operates at a
societal level in the sense of the relations between the rest of I mentioned
the crisis line. We have survivors who are in quite fragile mental states and
the process of reconciliation for them does involve health counselling to
attempt to get at the causes of their mental fragility in terms of the abuse
that they suffered when they were young. Health [Français]
M. Yvon
Lévesque: Justement, on a entendu dire que, dans
des traitements, des retenues étaient faites sur les paiements pour ces soins. De quelle manière entendez-vous remédier à ces montants qui sont
retenus? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: The emphasis that we put in the first set of operations on
the common experience payment was to get the payments moving as quickly as we
could, so the second level, the reconsideration, we'll go back and, for
instance, find people where they claimed for maybe seven or eight years. We had
records only for five. We'll do a reconsideration process that will give them
the benefit of the doubt and if we've lost records, that
really is not their fault, it's ours, and so we will be trying to
respond to the needs in that way. [Français]
M. Yvon
Lévesque: On sait que des personnes sont beaucoup plus vieilles que
d'autres et que d'autres sont très malades. Une mesure
spécifique a-t-elle été mise de l'avant pour les
retracer le plus rapidement possible? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, very definitely. I mentioned the health support
workers. We try to make sure that we are responding quickly in cases where
people fall ill and are in desperate need of the payments. So we do try to
provide some care at that level as well. ¿ (0925) [Français]
M. Yvon
Lévesque: Merci, madame.
M. Marc
Lemay (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ): Combien de temps reste-t-il? [English]
The
Chair: Quatre minutes. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: D'accord. Madame
Davis, j'ai une question. Dans mon comté, il y a eu un pensionnat, à Saint-Marc. Saint-Marc
était, à cette période, une très petite communauté, un
petit village. Voici la question que je me pose.
Pourquoi les étudiants de jour ne peuvent-ils pas être admissibles à ce programme? Dans certaines communautés — et je parle, entre autres, de Saint-Marc, où c'est vraiment
particulier — beaucoup d'autochtones partaient de la réserve — qui est à 12 km
— le matin, s'en allaient à Saint-Marc et revenaient tard le soir quand les
parents venaient les chercher. Ils auraient droit de
faire réclamation, dans au moins deux des cas, car au moins deux personnes sont
venus me consulter à ce sujet à mon bureau. J'ai promis de
poser la question. Pouvez-vous me donner une réponse?
Est-ce prévu dans la loi? Je ne l'ai
pas vu. J'ai peut-être mal lu. Est-ce prévu que les étudiants de jour sont exclus spécifiquement? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: The
agreement is the other way around, it specifically
includes people who stayed at residential schools, who boarded at the schools.
The common experience payment goes to the people who were really taken from
their families, who couldn't go home in the evening and as a result suffered
greatly. We have not
made provision for people who were at day schools. [Français]
Mr. Marc
Lemay: Vingt milles ont été exclus, mais au moins
plusieurs centaines pouvaient retourner chez eux le soir. Est-ce
possible de revoir cette entente? Il faudrait
que les parties la revoient. Ils ont vécu des choses.
Les exemples et les images qui me viennent, c'est
qu'ils entraient chez eux tard le soir. Dans la journée, et
surtout après l'école — appelons-le comme on voudra —, des choses se passaient
entre le moment où les parents venaient les chercher et le moment où ils
entraient chez eux. Y a-t-il moyen de faire des exceptions?
Faudra-t-il trouver une façon de voir cela? Je parle
de cas exceptionnels. C'est
documenté. Ils ont vraiment été dans ce
pensionnat, mais ils ne pouvaient pas y coucher, parce que la réserve où ils
demeuraient était à 12 km. [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: I've asked Mr. Vickery if he can assist with this question.
Mr. Paul
Vickery (Director and Senior General Counsel ,
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development): I think that during
the course of the negotiation of the agreement, the issue of day students was
specifically addressed. All of the parties around the table during the
negotiations led by the hon. Frank Iacobucci had the opportunity of raising
questions in relation to whether particular groups should be included. No
agreement, of course, is necessarily perfect. The thrust of the discussion that
led to the agreement was focused on dealing with the common experience of those
who were taken from their families and compelled to live in an institutional
setting. That was the thrust of the agreement, and that is why the key criteria
for compensation under the common experience payment is that the individual has
undergone the common experience of an institutionalized setting in which that
person lived. There is, of
course, under the independent assessment process, if there are claims of abuse
of either a physical or sexual nature, then a day
student would of course be eligible for that process.
The
Chair: Now let's go to Ms. Crowder, seven minutes.
Ms. Jean
Crowder ( I just want
to follow-up on the day student question. In some cases, some students were
actually put into foster homes because there were no actual 24-hour beds
available in residential schools. They attended residential schools as day
students but were returned to the foster care homes. So, in
effect, they were removed from their homes and often placed in culturally
inappropriate homes. Why are they not considered in
this process?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Again, they could make an appeal to the national
administration committee that does include representatives of survivors . That issue could be discussed there. ¿ (0930)
Ms. Jean
Crowder: It's not being reconsidered, though, in terms of this particular
common experience payment?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: No, not in terms of—
Ms. Jean
Crowder: You've indicated that 20,000 people are ineligible and that so far
9,000 have completed reviews. We've had many complaints about the length of the
reviews. In fact I've got a case here. The request was received by the CEP in
April 2008. That person received a letter dated June 26, 2008. As of yesterday,
they had inquired about the application still in process and were advised there
is no timeframe that has been set for reconsiderations. We were just
asked to check back periodically. Now these are often elderly claimants, and
you're asking them to go through a reconsideration process that is now going
into almost a year. What are the timeframes that are in place, particularly
when you're talking about 9,000 reviews?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We are putting a focus on this now. Having gone through the
first round of the common experience payments, the resources for research are
now being devoted to the second and third stages. I hope we
will see an increase in the speed with which we're dealing with
reconsiderations. If I could
add, if there is somebody particular who you feel needs to have a quick
resolution to their claim because of their state of health or their age, you
could certainly let me know that.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: We would contact you directly?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: You could indeed contact me directly.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Is the department planning to put in place speed of service
guidelines around processing the reviews? Many of the departments, for example
HRSDC, do have guidelines in place for processing appeals.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We do try to aim towards a 60-day turnaround on
reconsideration. Then if there's further information that the claimant needs to
provide us, there's 100 days on that.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Sixty days. So in this particular case that I'm talking about—
Ms.
Caroline Davis: It's well exceeded that, already.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: And we do have numbers of cases that are in that—
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Perhaps you could, as I said, pass me the list.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Just in that light, is there an MP contact for when we have
questions around CEP?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: There is the CEP line. There is a service line.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: An MP contact?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We haven't set that up specifically. If it's the wish of
the committee, we could certainly look at that. In the meantime I would suggest
that you give my office a call.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Just in terms of the schools, you've indicated that two schools
have been accepted under the agreement. Is there a possibility of providing us
with a list of all the schools that—
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We do have one here with us that we could leave with the
committee. It's the original list. We could also provide one that's been
updated to reflect the additional two. The information is on the Internet, as
well.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: The list of all the schools that have applied? Okay. We can access
it off the Internet.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: The list on the website has been updated as far as November
14, 2008. When we go back, we'll make sure it's up to date, to today.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Just in terms when you have 1,200 schools, what's the process for
looking at adding those schools or denying those schools? You've outlined the
three criteria, is that the only criteria that is used?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, they are. We do have a lot of research that was done
actually before the government entered into the agreement. There is a lot of
research available on a large number of schools. We can go through that. We
discuss carefully and apply the two-part test before we take the decisions. Then when a
decision is made, there is a detailed explanation of the documents that we've
looked at and the kinds of things that we read in the documents that support
the decision. We make that available to the people who've applied.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: In the appeal process?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Sorry?
Ms. Jean
Crowder: In the appeal process? For the school?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Well, yes. The appeal for a school could come either from
the claimants themselves who could go to the court or the national
administrative committee could take the case and go to court.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: In terms of the independent process, I'm sorry, the IAP process,
we've heard from quite a number of people that it seems in their view that
their claims are rejected for what seem to them to be minor reasons. For
example, we've had some people say that as a six-year-old they couldn't
remember the name of the teacher who abused them and that was the reason that
their claim was rejected. They're now in their sixties and seventies so I think
it's not unreasonable that they couldn't remember the name of their teacher at
six. What kinds
of reasons are we seeing for rejection of those claims? That seemed a fairly
simple reason. ¿ (0935)
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, it does. Speaking for my colleague again, here, there
is a very thorough research process that goes on. I think, if I could, with all
due respect, the people who go to these hearings are very often, as I've
mentioned already, in a fragile mental state--
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Well, they're traumatized. They're traumatized all over again.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: They're traumatized and they get traumatized all over
again. So their recollection of the process that they go through and the kinds
of reasons that we give could be difficult for them to take in. So again I
think this is where it's very, very important that if you hear about one of
these that you would encourage them to work with their health support worker
and to try and work through this.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Well, I don't know what the accessibility is in many remote
communities to health support workers and when I hear about a crisis line, the
reality is many communities simply don't have telephones. So providing them
with an option of a crisis line to deal with not only their own trauma but
intergenerational trauma...a crisis line in many ways simply is not culturally
appropriate. It doesn't provide support on the ground in the community and if
that's what's being offered to people in terms of--
The
Chair: You're out of time, Ms. Crowder.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: I am just hoping the department will look at some other options.
The
Chair: We'll leave it at that. Thank you. We'll
proceed to Mr. Rickford, and I understand you'll be splitting your time with
Mr. Albrecht, or whatever you choose. Please, go
ahead.
Mr. Greg
Rickford (Kenora, CPC): Okay, I understand that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Oui,
c'est clair comme l'eau de roche. Thank you for coming here today. It's nice to see some
familiar faces. I have two questions. One deals with the Indian residential
school process and then the other one is just a comment on the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission as a sort of pre-emptive comment on what we'll be
hearing later on today. First, was
there any exercise or initiative to prepare or respond and provide support for
folks who got payments, either through common experience or the IAP? For
example, to safeguard against certain kinds of exploitation, etc? Was there
anything done in that regard?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes, there was. There is the
community impacts working group which did discuss, as you said, the
possibilities of adverse impacts. For instance, we worked with band
administrators to make sure that information was available on how to make a
will, how to manage an estate, because for the first time people would have
substantial amounts of money to leave potentially. So we are
going to be reinvigorating this community impacts working group because there
have been some stories in the press that have been disturbing recently and we
would like to try, again, as far as we can, to work with communities to prevent
those kinds of things.
Mr. Greg
Rickford: I think that's critical so I appreciate that response. The second
piece I want to go over is this. I understand that in order for the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission to have any success, it has to act autonomously from
the department, but I do understand that the department provided some services
in kind. I think you mentioned the operational administrative setup of the TRC.
Could you comment on what those operational administrative things were and
briefly comment if you can or will on the role of the church or churches and
whether any deference was given to the traditional element of this in helping
administer the TRC?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: I can comment from the point of view of the government,
perhaps not so much from the point of view of the churches. Government
has, as you know, certain accountability requirements that have to be met. My
colleague, who'll be before you just in a few minutes, is the acting executive
director to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We have been supporting
her as far as we possibly can, in terms of providing systems and qualified
people who can administer government programs, so experts in finance program
management, that kind of thing. The aim of all that has been
to ensure that they can meet the requirements of the Financial Administration
Act. For the
churches, I don't think I can really add anything there, sorry. It will be
really for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to get up and running and
find the support that it needs where it can find it. ¿ (0940)
Mr. Greg
Rickford: Okay. Thank you.
The
Chair: Halfway through, so we're going to go to Mr. Clarke, then.
Mr. Rob
Clarke (Desnethé—Missinippi— Thank you for coming today. But the
question I have is—and forgive me if I'm not clear—in order for the students
and the children to go, there's some wording in there in regards to parenting
in residential school in the agreement. Do you by
chance have that wording for the criteria for the schools to be acting as a
parent? Parental relationship, sorry.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes. I referred it in my speech. Would you like me to run
through that again or...?
Mr. Rob
Clarke: Just under section 12, part of the 12 there. It's the parental
role, because this has a really big impact for schools and being selected.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes. I think it
reflects the fact that at a residential school children are in the care of
members of the religious order, for instance, that runs it or the teachers that
run it, as opposed to their parents, and the intergenerational impacts of that,
of course, are quite severe, in that when children grow up in a loving and
kindly atmosphere, they tend to treat their own children that way. So it's the
loss of parenting skills that came from attendance at residential schools that
we've been trying to address.
Mr. Rob
Clarke: When the students are in the residential school, the schools were a
parent, is that correct, actually a parenting role?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Well, they were in loco parentis, yes.
Mr. Rob
Clarke: How is the language selected—
Ms.
Caroline Davis: The language in the school?
Mr. Rob
Clarke: —and as interpreted now?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Yes. Well, the
language of the agreement was negotiated between the parties. Do you want
to comment on this, Paul?
Mr. Paul
Vickery (Director and Senior General Counsel ,
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development): Yes. Certainly
the specific language of the settlement agreement was the subject of extensive
discussion over quite an extended period of time and there was a variety of
viewpoints put forward. The ultimate language was arrived at by consensus.
The
Chair: You've still got 20 seconds. If you wanted to have a quick one, that
would be fine.
Mr. Rob
Clarke: Now, that language with
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Well, we certainly work within the terms of the agreement,
but, as I said, to try and put the benefit of the doubt in favour of the
applicants.
Mr. Rob
Clarke: So the article there is basically through interpretation?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Well, there is interpretation, there's a growing
interpretation as we go through the appeals, and the information that we're
getting from that will be precedential.
The
Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate
the members sticking to the timelines tightly. I know we're dealing with a
tight timeline here. That's sort
of a lead-in to the fact that our next round we're going to try and keep to
three minutes, if we can. We've got 15 minutes left with the officials here on
this particular subject. Let's
proceed to Madam Folco, three minutes. [Français]
Mme
Raymonde Folco ( S'il me
reste du temps, je voudrais le partager avec mon
collègue, M. Russell. Madame
Davis, d'abord je vais m'excuser de mon retard, mais
cela n'enlève rien à l'importance de la question. Sur la
question de la commission, on peut supposer qu'il est
important qu'elle soit totalement indépendante des actions ainsi de suite du
gouvernement, quel que soit le gouvernement en place. Je n'ai
pas besoin de réponse. La réponse semble assez évidente. Dans l'affirmative, quels gestes ont été posés pour
s'assurer que le secrétariat et les commissaires sont libres de toutes
interférences gouvernementales? J'ai une deuxième question à vous poser. Je
m'excuser d'y aller rapidement, mais je n'ai que trois minutes. Quelle
protection a été apportée pour s'assurer que le processus
d'évaluation est indépendant de toutes interférences gouvernementales? ¿ (0945) [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: With regards to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission I
could perhaps refer to the supplementary estimates that were tabled at committee.
What they did was quite unusual in government terms. They have allocated the
budget for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the five years that it
will be operating as an entire amount. Usually you will see in the estimates
that for instance a five year program would be divided into five parts in the
estimates. The money that's been approved for the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission will be rolling over from year to year and the government has given
approval for the roll over. So I would argue the budgetary restraint on it I
would argue is considerably less than would be for somebody like myself. With regards
to the independent assessment process on abuse cases I believe is what you were
referring to the adjudicators are selected and are independent of government so
that the process of reviewing with individual claimants acts outside of public
service employees. We only get involved when the claim has been decided and it
becomes a question of payment. So that process is independent.
Ms.
Raymonde Folco: The other questions are for my colleague.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: We're estimating at about 12,000. Obviously as history
continues that estimate is quite soft.
Mr.
Ms.
Caroline Davis: It could do yes.
The
Chair: That's it unfortunately, Mr. Russell, thank you very much and Madame
Folco. We're going
to Mr. Albrecht for three minutes.
Mr.
Harold Albrecht ( I just want
to say how important it is to me having been present the day that the apology
was delivered, and also on that day having the opportunity to speak to many of the residential school survivors and to feel the
sense of hope for renewed relationships. I think that's significant. I hope
that we don't loose sight of the big picture in all of this. I think today
we're struggling with some of the logistics of getting the hard work done now.
I certainly want to follow-up on the concerns that Mr. Rickford mentioned
earlier of trying to mitigate the risks of having this money become actually a
negative in the lives of anyone, aboriginal or non-aboriginal. I'm glad to hear
that you indicated there are some measures in place to help that. Now the one
question I had you said the average common experience payment is $20,500 and
then the independent assessment process range from $5,000 to $430,000. Would
that be in addition to the common experience or would that be
separate?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: That's an addition. It's in cases of specific abuse. The
common experience payment went to everyone who was at a residential school and
as I said only some of them actually suffered specific cases of sexual or
physical abuse.
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: Thank you. Would you be
able to just flush out a little for us? On page 4 of your comments you outlined
a number of the initiatives that are in place to help aboriginal people, the
Aboriginal Healing Foundation. We obviously later will want to talk about the
Reconciliation Commission. The $125 million endowment to the
Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and the Health Canada support program of $95
million over 5 years that's a significant investment. Could you maybe
just give us a bird's-eye view of how that money will be allocated and what
different programs are in place within those foundations to get that work done?
Ms.
Caroline Davis: It's difficult to speak to the Aboriginal Healing
Foundation because it is an independent one. They have prepared a number of
volumes of summaries of impacts that the residential school system had that I
feel form part of a very important historical record and they are also working
with communities on individual projects to promote healing. It might be
interesting for you to read their annual report. ¿ (0950)
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: I have looked at in previous years. I haven't recently. I
guess the question I'm trying to get at, if I have another three seconds, is
any of their work preventative in nature, especially considering this new layer
that's been placed onto all of us now with the common experience payment and
the independent assessment program.
Ms. Caroline
Davis: I'm not sure I can specifically answer on behalf of the Aboriginal
Healing Foundation, but if I could, we do have a program which provides public
information to communities and works with them on the impacts and we will be
carrying forward funding for that into the next fiscal year, so there would be
some scope for working with communities to try to mitigate some of these
potential impacts.
The
Chair: Thank you, Mr. Albrecht, and now we'll go to the Bloc. Monsieur Lemay, trois minutes. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Madame Davis, il y a une chose qui
m'apparaît essentielle. Je le cherchais dans votre discours,
mais je vais le redire dans mes mots. Dans votre introduction, il ne faudrait perdre de vue — et je vous assure que tous
les membres ici ne font pas de politique avec ce dossier — qu'il faut
absolument que l'argent aille aux Autochtones. Je pense que votre mandat est clair. Cela m'apparaît essentiel et
important de vous le rappeler. Je pense que je n'ai même pas
besoin de vous le rappeler, vous m'apparaissez très sensible. Il faut tout faire pour que les Autochtones puissent
recevoir ce à quoi ils ont droit. On ne pourra jamais — j'en ai dans mon comté plusieurs qui ont vécu des choses affreuses au
pensionnat — les remettre dans l'état où ils étaient, mais au moins si on peut
les aider de cette façon. Au moins, que les sommes aillent à
ces personnes. On sait que les communautés religieuses vont verser 100 millions de
dollars. Comment allez-vous vous assurer — parce que c'est écrit dans le
rapport sur le rendement pour la période se terminant le 31 mars — que ces
sommes de 100 millions de dollars et plus pourront être versées et aller à la
Fondation autochtone de guérison? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: You're reoffering to the money that the church is providing
in services and kind. We will be doing an evaluation of the whole settlement
agreement and we are in discussions with the church groups continually, so I
think we can give you some assurance that indeed the church groups regard this
with the amount of seriousness that you do and that we all do, in fact. So I'm
very hopeful on that. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: La Fondation autochtone de guérison est
extrêmement importante dans tout ce processus. Va-t-elle
bien? Fonctionne-t-elle bien? Les 125 millions
de dollars versés aident-ils les Autochtones à passer au travers
de ces événements traumatisants? [English]
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Certainly. From what I've read in their annual reports and
the documents that they have sent out, I would say that it's been a very
positive influence in this area. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Merci. [English]
The
Chair: Mr. Lemay, you still have thirty seconds if
you wish, Mr. Lemay.
M. Marc
Lemay: I'm going to give that time to Madam or Monsieur. [Français] Oui, pourvu qu'il ne fasse pas de politique avec. [English]
Mr. John
Duncan ( I have
residential schools in my area, or had, and family members who were in
residential schools. The apology cannot be underestimated because I've seen the
impact it's had on individuals, on individuals who wouldn't speak about their
experience with their own family members until such time as that apology kind
of broke things open. We have individuals who actually talked about the good
experience they had in the school. They could be with a brother or sister in
the very same school, but they had exactly the opposite experience. This has
been a very emotional time for many people, but it has been good in that it's
brought process to the exercise and I think it's brought families back together
that were driven apart. I would like
to ask a little more on the Health Canada support program of $95 million over
five years. I realize we don't have Health We had the
comment from Jean Crowder from the NDP that the crisis line doesn't always
work. I'm quite sure she's correct on that matter, but there are other
provisions that you have referenced in your talk. ¿ (0955)
Ms.
Caroline Davis: Perhaps I could mention this from my own personal point of
view. I was in I was
extremely impressed having met with these people. There were about 25 of them
there. I was very impressed with their level of dedication and, indeed, their
ability to deal with people who might be suicidal, or who might in fact be
threatening violence against other people. I do believe
that the work they're doing is bearing fruit and is going to aid the survivors
and the communities.
The
Chair: Thank you very much. Members, we
are out of time if we're going to switch over to the next topic. I thank you
for your indulgence and patience with the smaller room here today as well. Madam Davis,
we appreciate your presentation this morning. We'll take a
brief two-minute break while we switch over and then we'll proceed with the
next subject. Thank you. À (1000) [Français]
Le
président: Mesdames, Messieurs, nous recommençons. Le deuxième sujet à
l'ordre du jour est la Commission de vérité et de
réconciliation. [English] I welcome
Madam Aideen Nabigon. We're going to begin with your presentation for 10
minutes. In the course of that you can introduce the guests that are with us
today. We'll proceed from there and then, after your presentation, to questions
from members.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon (Acting Executive Director, Truth and Reconciliation
Commission): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to
appear before your committee to discuss the work of the Indian residential
schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With me here
today I have Alia Butt, who is the acting director of policy, and Matt Garrow,
the acting director of corporate services. I've been
the acting executive director of the truth and reconciliation secretariat since
September 2008. The secretariat is a new government department that supports
the work of the commission. The commission, which is comprised of a chair and
two commissioners appointed by orders in council, is independent. The executive
director reports to the commission on mandated activities and to the minister
for the purpose of reporting to Parliament on how the TRC has spent the money
allocated to it under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. By way of
background, I've spent my Public Service career dedicated to aboriginal issues
and in recent years I've been actively involved in Indian residential schools
issues for three separate government departments. I'd like to
provide an overview of the TRC, including the work of the commission since it
was established on June 1, 2008 and the work it will undertake over the course
of its five-year mandate. The TRC is
one component of the court-approved settlement agreement. Pursuant to the agreement,
$60 million was allocated for the creation of the TRC. The commission is said
to be the cornerstone of the settlement agreement. As set out
in our mandate, the TRC will do the following: research and examine the
conditions that gave rise to the Indian Residential Schools legacy. It will
provide an opportunity for those affected, including first nation, Métis and
Inuit survivors, their families, communities, the churches and former school
employees, the government and the Canadian public to share their experiences
about a significant part of Canadian history still unknown to most Canadians.
It will create an accurate and public historical record of the past, and in doing so it will help to fill the blank pages
of At the end
of our mandate we will have accomplished the following. We will have listened
to those whose lives have been deeply affected by the legacy of residential schools.
We'll have held seven national events in different regions across In terms of
the progress that has been made to date, I can advise that the TRC secretariat
staff has been working to put in place the essential organizational structure
to allow the TRC to implement its various mandate activities, including the
development and approval of a Treasury Board submission, the development of an
organization chart which has been submitted to the Public Service Commission
for approval, and we've initiated processes to meet federal reporting
obligations. With respect
to the TRC mandate, the secretariat has developed a strategic plan and we have
developed implementation strategies and work plans. We've also identified legal
issues impacting the work of the TRC and obtained advice with respect to
statement gathering, legal obligations under federal privacy legislation, and
the collection and archiving of documents. À (1005) We need to
gain back the trust of survivors and restore confidence in the process. Once
the new commission has been appointed, we will be in a position to move forward
to successfully implement our mandate. In spite of the challenges the
commission has faced, we appreciate the patience and understanding of
Canadians, particularly survivors of residential schools. We recognize that
many survivors are elderly and that we need to move forward as quickly as
possible to receive statements from anyone affected by the legacy of residential
schools. People will be able to describe their experiences in a safe,
respectful, and culturally appropriate manner. A person might share his or her
story through a one-on-one interview, in a written statement, or in a group
setting. Over the
course of the next few months, the secretariat will finalize frameworks for
national and community events, finalize budget allocations for mandate
activities, increase communications and outreach and continue dialogue with
parties and survivor organizations, conclude the selection process for members
of the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Committee, which is a 10-member
committee, the majority of whom will be survivors from across Canada and will
serve as an advisory body to the TRC, and will ensure that the voices of
survivors are heard and reflected when providing advice and recommendations to
the commission. We'll hire regional liaisons and we'll increase our capacity by
staffing positions, with a particular priority on hiring aboriginal employees. Our focus
must be on what is important for survivors and all of There has
been international interest in the work of the TRC, and the Prime Minister's
apology last June further increased its international profile. The TRC must
facilitate a process of truth, healing, and provide the foundation for
reconciliation. We want to help guide and inspire aboriginal peoples and all
Canadians toward a process of reconciliation and renewed relationships based on
mutual understanding and respect. Mr. Chair, I
welcome the input of the members of the committee on ways that we can ensure
the success of the TRC. Thank you. À (1010) [Français]
The
Chair: Merci beaucoup. Maintenant,
nous allons procéder aux questions des députés. Commençons avec M. Murphy.
M. Brian
Murphy ( Merci aux témoins. Merci à tout
le monde. Je suis nouveau à ce comité. [English] I have a few
questions, a couple of them, Ms. Nabigon, you might not be able to or want to
respond to, and they are these. We really, really don't know why the
commissioners couldn't get along and why Mr. Justice LaForme resigned, but what
we do know is that the remaining commissioners are staying on till June 1. With
all due respect, when I look at progress made with the TRC, and with great
sympathy to you, it must be difficult to have any progress when the highlight
of the day seems to be the bickering between commissioners, the over-holding of
commissioners who are not going to be there after June 1, and I would say the
slowness on the government's side in getting replacements for the
commissioners. Why I say
this must be difficult for you is that there's some urgency, and perhaps you
could answer these questions. There is a five-year timeline for your mandate.
The way I see it, since June 1 you have set out some strategic planning and a
mandate. Once you get an all-new commission, that may well, with input from
above-down, change somewhat and you might as well say you're starting from
scratch. Is five years enough? How much of the $60 million has been used to
date? I understand you have premises, the lease for which may be up in March.
What are you going to do about that? You have within the mandate a suggested
report period of two years from inception, which I believe was June 2008. So in
June 2010, are you going to be in a position--perhaps another six months, I
understand--to do a report on the historical findings and recommendations? I guess what
I'm saying is unless there's some dispatch on this matter from the government
and the new commission, clearly, do you think that you can meet the timelines
and get done what is expected of you?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Clearly there was conflict within the commission. I wasn't
privy to those discussions and we were not part of the discussions headed by
Justice Iacobucci to resolve and to find a solution for moving forward. With regard
to whether there is enough funding and enough time for moving forward, that
will be a decision that will have to be made when the new chair and
commissioners are appointed. As I said,
we're doing everything we can to set the foundation to make sure the foundation
is in place for the new chair and commissioners when they come on board
hopefully by June 1.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Right. What about this two year report? Am I right in reading that
in two years you have to do a full report on the historical findings and
recommendations?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: With the possibility of a six month extension.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Right.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Do you anticipate asking for the six month extension or advising in
your role the commissioners, whoever they may be, for that?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, I would definitely anticipate that we'll be asking for
the six month extension and again, whether the commissioners and the new chair
come back to the government and ask for an extension down the road on the five
years will be up to the new commissioners. À (1015)
Mr. Brian
Murphy: I think what we perhaps know is that there were personality
conflicts, perhaps philosophical conflicts which again we are not all privy to,
but really to the people affected that doesn't matter and all of us as
parliamentarians, particularly the government, have an obligation to move on
this. You're somewhat captive because you don't have a full commission to work
with. Is there any
reason that you can see why the commissioners who are there now are staying
until June? It seems an awful long time saying, “I'm done with this. I can't
stay but I'll stay till June”. What effective work can be done from now until
June from two commissioners who are departing and are not going to be part of
the final process?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The commissioners in their public statement last week or
the week before have committed to being available to advise
on the transition and supporting the new commission in its transition phase and
provide support to the secretariat as well.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: But as I understand it, the commission, the three members as they
were as of October of last year never met on the substantive issues.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Again, I only started in September I wasn't aware. They
were meeting. I wasn't a party to the conflict. As I said, it was clear there
was conflict. I wasn't involved with that.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: It is clear that that is all there was because there is no work
product that has come out of it. I guess what I'm asking from a let's get it
done point of view, which all parliamentarians should join in on, is what is
the use in having those commissioners stay until June. Do they come into the
office every day?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No, they don't come into the office every day. Again, Mr.
Chair, I simply wasn't party to the discussions that led to them staying until
June 1.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: How often are they coming in to advise you with respect to the
development of the Treasury Board' submission, the development of an
organizational chart and to initiate processes, to meet processees and to meet
federal reporting obligations? It sounds like work that you're pretty capable
of doing on your own frankly.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, the secretariat has been doing all of the work that
you've just mentioned. The commissioners are not in the office.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Do you have premises?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, we do.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Is the lease up?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No. We're in right downtown
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Right. Of the $60 million how much was spent?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: To date we have spent $2.4 million.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: And clearly that all on administrative and salaries.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: So by June, nothing will happen until June or later.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Nothing will happen, well, I mean we're doing limited
outreach to the extent that we can. I think it's extremely important that we
hear from survivors when we can. We won't be making final decisions on the
mandate activities. For example, we are anxious to get moving on our first
national event. We won't do that until we have a chair in place to approve the
date and location.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: So the total up to June your estimate would be how much of the $60
million?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Up until June we're about $3.4 million.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: And that includes the salaries for the commissioners who are
serving until June.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: That's it.
The
Chair: Sorry. That's it, Mr. Murphy and now we'll
proceed to Monsieur Lemay. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Madame Nabigon, veuillez croire que je ne vous en veux pas
personnellement et que les remarques que je ferai
n'iront pas à l'encontre de votre travail. Je n'aurais pas
voulu être dans vos souliers depuis septembre. Je ne Je relirai
la phrase la plus importante de votre texte et
j'espère que les gens des deux côtés de la Chambre l'écouteront. Voici ladite
phrase: « Nous devons regagner la confiance des survivants et rétablir la
confiance envers le processus. » C'est de l'or en barre.
Jusqu'à maintenant, la commission perd deux à zéro. Vous n'aurez pas de troisième chance. J'espère
que quelqu'un comprendra cela. Dans mon comté,
quatre survivants sont décédés au cours de la dernière année. Ce sont donc quatre survivants qui ne pourront témoigner. Il y en a eu 132 au pensionnat. Je ferai une autre remarque. Cette commission commence à
devenir très centralisée. J'aime parfois la centralisation.
Je lisais la phrase suivante: « Au cours des prochains mois, terminer le
processus de sélection, embaucher des agents
régionaux. » J'appelle cela du red tape. Il faut absolument que la commission se mette à l'oeuvre. Sachant que
la commission viendra témoigner devant nous, j'ai fait un
petit tour chez nous. Personne ne comprend et
n'accepte qu'il y ait sept événements nationaux. Tous les Autochtones — et les Algonquins de mon comté — me demandent pourquoi ils
ne viennent pas dans nos régions. Mme McDougall a
78 ans; elle ne viendra jamais à Québec ou à Ce que les
veulent les Autochtones, c'est de pouvoir rendre un
témoignage dans leur lieu d'appartenance. Je vous suggère de prendre les
132 endroits où il y a eu des pensionnats, d'en
choisir quelques-uns et de vous rendre sur place — en région, pas seulement à
Montréal, à Pourquoi y a-t-il eu une mauvaise interprétation des mandats des
commissaires? J'ai lu tous les articles concernant
les démissions des commissaires et, jusqu'à maintenant, votre commission se
porte vraiment mal. Je suis désolé d'être méchant. Vous dites que d'ici juin, vous serez capable de changer cette
situation pour faire avancer les choses. Pensez-vous que
vous en serez capable? À (1020) [English]
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Thank you for those comments. I certainly understand the
frustration coming from communities and survivors. I mentioned
briefly that in addition to the seven national events which will be held across
the country, it's our intention to have them where we're advised to have them.
We will be having a survivors' group, a 10-member survivors' group who will
advise us on that. The commission will go where survivors want them to go, but in
addition to that, we also will be funding community events. We're developing
the criteria for those events and it will be available shortly. It will be
posted on our website and be made widely available so that communities know how
to apply for it. The other
thing that we'll be doing—and we're working on finalizing hopefully very, very
soon, certainly as soon as we have a new commission in place—is statement
gathering. We'll be going again wherever we can to communities across the
country, starting hopefully with vulnerable elders, survivors. We know
survivors are elderly and dying. We want to get their statements before they
die, so we'll be out there in the community as soon as we possibly can, talking
with survivors. If I could just mention, we'd been working with the Legacy of
Hope Foundation,which also is helping us gather those
statements. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Votre commission a-t-elle mis la main sur les documents de chacun de
ces pensionnats? En fait,
celui qui me préoccupe beaucoup, c'est celui de Saint-Marc en Abitibi où il y avait presque tous les indiens du Nord du Québec. Eux,
dans leur communauté, que ce soit Obedjwan de la nation Attikameks au nord de
La Tuque, mais un peu partout, ils ont ce qu'ils appellent « les murs de
la honte ». Ils ont des registres des indiens qui
sont allés dans ces pensionnats. Ils ont même des
photos. Des contacts
ont-ils été pris avec ces communautés? Ce sont de très petites communautés et je vous avouerais que je suis un peu d'accord avec Mme Crowder
que certaines communautés n'ont même pas le téléphone. Ne leur parlez pas
d'informatique ou de site internet parce qu'ils ne savent pas ce dont il s'agit. Alors, de quelle façon allons-nous
procéder pour les rejoindre? En fait, cette situation existe
toujours dans des communautés éloignées. À (1025) [English]
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: To answer your question about the files, the photos and the
records of students, yes, Indian residential schools, Indian Affairs has
extensive files on residential schools and according to the settlement
agreement they'll help us with those, we'll have access to those. We're working
with the churches as well to provide us with their records. Again, yes,
as far as getting out we know that people are living in remote communities and
that they can't come to the central location, so we will go out to where the
survivors are. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Encore? D'accord.
Le
président: Madame Crowder, sept minutes. [English]
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Thank you for coming today. This is a very important issue and you
can tell there's a lot of passion around this. I don't need a response, but I
just want to echo Monsieur Lemay's comments around the seven national events.
This has to be more than a PR exercise. I live on A couple of things. I understand that there was a benchmark
survey on public awareness of the Indian residential school legacy done that
was reported out on July 2008. I wonder how that information is going to be
used since it is a benchmark survey to inform the activities of the commission? I'm going to
ask you a couple of questions and I'd like the answers, so that's one. Has there
been any consideration given to appointing an Inuit commissioner to the truth
and reconciliation process because we've heard fairly consistently that the
Inuit have been left out of this conversation? With regards
to the issue around restoring confidence in the process and I think the trust
and confidence in this process has been badly damaged by what happened. Of
course, it's outside of your control. I'm sure that you would have preferred to
have the commissioners stay in place and work together, but the reality of it
is that many people just don't believe that this process is....It's going to be
difficult to get it back on the rails. I know there's a Treasury Board
submission that's been done, do you know what work went into ensuring that the
truth and reconciliation process will remain independent of the government and
how that's going to be set up? This has
been sort of referred to, but in the absence of having a functioning group of
commissioners, who does your secretariat report to? Where's your accountability
line around this, because you really don't have functioning commissioners?
Lastly, are you aware of whether survivors will actually have input into the
selection of those new commissioners? If you get
through those questions in my time, I want to ask you about the selection
process for the Indian residential schools survivor committee.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: With regard to the benchmark survey, can I get back to you
on that. We'll provide information on the benchmarks--
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Will you provide that in writing to the committee?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Sure, perfect, we will. Your second
question with regard to appointment of the Inuit commissioner, unfortunately, I
can't answer that question. We weren't involved in the previous process leading
up to the development of the current process which is the new table that
Justice Iacobucci is chairing to find a new chair and commissioner.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: So really what we have to do is have people contact Justice
Yacabucci.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: I would suggest that, yes. With regard
to what work went into ensuring that the commission is independent, the TRC
secretariat is set up as a government department, so it reports to the Minister
of Indian Affairs, it reports to Parliament through the Minister of Indian
Affairs but the relationship is very much for the sake of reporting to you to
Parliament. I don't have a relationship directly with the minister. À (1030)
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Sorry. I just want to clarify. So the secretariat, the reporting
relationship is to INAC.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Only for the sake of reporting to Parliament.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Only for the sake of reporting to Parliament. So outside of that
parliamentary reporting process who do you report to?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: To the commission.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: To the commission. Just out of curiosity, since there is this
relationship with INAC for reporting, did INAC staff roll over into the
commission?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Or into the secretariat?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No. There are some who we're seconding, including myself who came from INAC on a secondment basis, but we then
have to engage in...when we have our staffing
authorities we'll either hire them or they'll go back. There will be different
arrangements in place for hiring staff.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: So in terms of mandate and values and work performance, I assume
somebody is going to assess the work performance of the department. It's the
commissioners who will do that, not INAC.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: With that reporting relationship through INAC, if you produce a
report that INAC doesn't like, do you still get to put the report to Parliament
without INAC changing it?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: For reporting to Parliament, again, it's through the
minister.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: So the minister will have some influence on the report.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: What about the survivors' input into selection of commissioners. I
guess what I'm hearing you say is--
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: I don't know.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: So we would again need to have people contact Justice Yacabucci. How about the selection process for the Indian residential school
survivors committee. It says here “over the course of the next few
months the secretariat will conclude the selection process”, so I assume the
selection process is already under way.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Have some members already been selected?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes. There was a process where all the parties to the settlement
agreement have met and have come up with a list of nine or ten names. There
needs to be ten in total, and the federal government will appoint those names
after consulting with the Assembly of First Nations.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: I'm sorry. Who is it that's looking at these names right now?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: All of the parties have selected the names.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: All of the parties. When you're saying “all of the parties” who
are all of the parties.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The parties to the settlement agreement. Do you want me to
list them?
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Yes.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapirisat, the
churches and representatives for the survivors.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: They meet and they review this list and they make recommendations
that the government will then decide on as to whether they will accept those
recommendations.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: After consulting with the Assembly of First Nations.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: After consulting with the Assembly of First Nations. So right now,
if people wanted to be part of that Indian residential school survivor
committee, because it seems to me that if again, and we talked about cultural
appropriateness, that this body should have a significant role in advising the
commissioners and the secretariat. So if people are interested in being part of
that process, who do they contact?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The opportunity for selecting names has concluded, although
if they're interested for participating in the future they could send their
names to us, to the secretariat, they could go online and send it just in case
there are vacancies in the future.
The
Chair: We're finished there, Ms. Crowder. Thank you. We'll now go
to Mr. Payne.
Mr. LaVar
Payne ( I appreciate
you coming today, Ms. Nabigon and your staff. I have a couple of questions.
First of all, maybe if you could outline for us the goals of the commission and
how that will promote reconciliation, and then I'll ask my next question after.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The goal at the TRC is to lay the foundation for
reconciliation. I doubt reconciliation will have been achieved within the short
five-year mandate that will be in existence. Reconciliation will be long-term
and an ongoing process, but as I mentioned at the end of the five year period
for our mandate we hope that we'll have heard from all former students or as
many former students as we possibly can and that people will have listened,
that other Canadians will have listened and that through that process of
hearing, storytelling and listening, people actively listening and hearing what
went on at residential schools and about the legacy that resulted in those
residential schools, that there'll be a beginning of reconciliation.
Mr. LaVar
Payne: Okay, thank you. Just in
terms of the Canadian people hearing that, is there a process that you intend
to have the Commission go through to get that information out to Canadians so that
they will understand what was going on in the past history? À (1035)
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes. Hopefully, everybody that possibly can fit into the
seven national events will participate. They'll be a
report, that someone mentioned already. At the end of
two years, we'll have to do a report that will make recommendations to the
parties. In addition
to the seven national events, we'll have community events, where we're hoping
that those aren't at aboriginal communities, but that neighbouring communities
will participate in those activities, as well, and people will start to engage
and listen to each other. The truth will be told and through that, I hope,
we'll achieve reconciliation.
Mr. LaVar
Payne: Okay, thank you. That
actually leads me to the next question. In terms of
the seven events, have those been determined where those locations are going to
be at this point?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No. We've been working on the framework for holding the
events, but we're holding off on setting a date and a location until we have a
chaired commission in place.
Mr. LaVar
Payne: Okay. Just in
terms of the overall events and the funding, I believe it was $60 million for
this?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Mr. LaVar
Payne: I guess my next question is: is there going to be sufficient funding
to hold these events, as well as attending other communities?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Again, whether or not we have sufficient funding, I think
that'll have to be assessed once the new commission is in place. because of that fact that by that point, if, indeed, it
takes until June, we'll have lost a year.
Mr. LaVar
Payne: Okay, thank you. Do you have
any?
Mr. John
Duncan: Yes. Just to
follow up on that, the way I view this, you haven't actually lost a year
because during this timeframe you've had a lot of opportunity, as an
administration, to set a lot of things in place. For example, you've got your
survivors committee virtually picked, you've set up your offices, you went through a whole list of things that you've
accomplished in your presentation. My question
really is: it is still conceivable, is it not, that the five-year timeframe is
quite possibly enough time to do the job?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes. If we're told to do it within the existing mandate and
the existing funding, we'll do it. There's a
couple of things there, one related to money, and the fact that we'll have to
keep the walls up for an extra year, and there's overhead, rent, salaries for
our employees, that kind of thing, but also the fact that, under the Settlement
Agreement, survivors were provided with a five-year mandate in which to tell
their stories. That's something that will also have to be assessed. As people
have mentioned, survivors are still waiting, they're still waiting for things
to begin. We've done outreach to the extent that we can, but they're waiting to
hear from commissioners. We'll have to make an assessment as to whether the
expectation is that we'll continue for five years, starting from the date of
the new commission.
Mr. John
Duncan: Do I have more time? In your
statement today, you reference, say, on page 3, the final report that the
commission will produce, and we heard from Mr. Murphy about the two-year
report, which is quite separate and apart. Will there be interim reports leading up to your final report?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes. Actually, under the Settlement Agreement, there is
only a requirement for an interim report at the two-year mark. I would expect
that the commission will want to have some sort of final report, but the
Settlement Agreement only requires an interim report.
Mr. John
Duncan: On these hearings, they're described as being “safe, respectful”
and held in a “culturally appropriate manner”, they can be done
“one-on-one...in a written statement or in a group setting”. Are those publicly
accessible in any way?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Just to be clear, it's not a criminal tribunal, and as such
we won't be doing hearings. What I was referring to was the statement
gatherings, the opportunities for survivors to tell their stories, and as part
of that, for other Canadians to hear them. It will be entirely up to the
survivor, the individual survivor. I've been to
gatherings of 500 survivors where there's no end of survivors who'd like to get
up to tell their stories. They want people to know what happened to them. Those
opportunities will exist through community events and national events. Other
survivors will be telling their stories for the first time. We want to provide
them with all the privacy that they need. It could be the survivor and a
statement taker. We'll have an opportunity for them to do it in writing without
anybody present. They could just mail it in to us if they're not comfortable
with having somebody present. À (1040)
The
Chair: Thank you, Mr. Duncan. [Français] Pour le
deuxième tour, nous nous limiterons à trois minutes et
nous débutons avec M. Murphy. [English]
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Thank you very much. I'll speak very quickly. It seems to
me that a lot of the issue of delay really has to do with the commissioners' named. It might have something to do with severance or their
wanting to stay on longer. The concern's not germane to your job, but you did
say that they would be useful in terms of overlap or transition. You've said in
a response to Mr. Duncan's question, in part--it might have been Mr. Payne's
question--if it takes until June to get new commissioners. Are you anticipating, has there been discussion between you and Minister Strahl
or officials at INAC of appointments of new commissioners before June?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: No, I'm being optimistic.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Okay. I'm sorry to hang on your words but it's
pretty much all we have, and I appreciate it, I think you said that you would
reasonably anticipate the work to take five years from the appointment of the
new commissioners.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: All right. If you are told to do it, we will, which is to do within
the five years from June 1, which reminds me of somebody being asked to pour a
foundation in the pouring rain: if you tell us to do it, we will, but we were
very clear that it should be five years from the appointment of the
commissioners. My final
questions have to do with the accountability that Ms. Crowder was talking
about. In the absence of a chief commissioner since October and the two
commissioners on their way out, essentially a dysfunctional commission, is the
secretariat reporting directly to the minister? How many discussions have you
had directly with Minister Strahl? It would seem to me that a minister who has
a dysfunctional commission might want to check in with the secretariat, with
you in particular, and say, “How's it going? What can we do?” This is the
system of ministerial responsibility we have in this country, so please tell me
that he's met with you on various occasions to see what can be done to expedite
the lacune that exists here.
Mrs. Aideen
Nabigon: Minister Strahl has actually been very respectful of the need for
independence. The secretariat has been fine. We've been talking with the
department as need be. Caroline Davis, who reported before me, has been very,
very helpful in providing us with whatever support we need in getting up and
running. No, I haven't had discussions with Minister Strahl, but nor have I
really felt the need to. I have no doubt that if I did, he would take my call.
We've dealt with the department, we have not dealt with
Minister Strahl.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: In short, you're really not reporting to anyone.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The commissioners are still there. To be honest, no, I
don't have a reporting relationship with the commissioners.
Mr. Brian
Murphy: Okay.
The
Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Rickford.
Mr. Greg
Rickford: First of all, thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the witnesses for coming
here today. I have one
point and one question. I want to
echo the sentiments of my colleagues on the locations. You've invited us to
make some recommendations, but certainly I hope that you'll be listening to survivors wishes. I have at
least six qualified Indian residential schools in my riding, which is 321,000
square kilometres. Twenty-five of those communities have no access by road and
a number of the survivors live in those community. I think that
helps us focus on that and so I'm hoping we're not talking about a Montreal,
Toronto, Winnipeg—well, Winnipeg perhaps—sort of national tour, and I'll put my
pitch in for Kenora, certainly. That has to be kept in mind. I just did a
cursory view and I have a question. Is there support integrated into the
commission's mandate? When we went from the alternative dispute resolution
process into the IAP we started to see that there were some claims for
student-on-student abuse. I'm concerned, and I want to bring it forth to the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that we don't
want this to be any more divisive. There's funding available with Health À (1045)
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, and we are working closely with Health Canada, the
Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and the Assembly of First Nations to make sure
that those supports are in place.
Mr. Greg
Rickford: Okay.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: There is a strategy being developed, a health support
strategy.
Mr. Greg
Rickford: Who is participating in that discussion?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: The parties to the settlement agreement. The secretariat is
involved, there's survivors at the table, and I would
expect that the survivor committee, when it's up and running, will be very
interested in that issue as well. Again, doing
limited outreach, I'm actually going to Sioux Lookout tomorrow to meet with a
group of survivors.
Mr. Greg
Rickford: That's a great location for one of your national events.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, I'm sure they'll tell me that too. The visit is
to get their feedback and hear what it is that they want us to do in that
regard. If there's not enough supports we'll be talking to Health
Mr. Greg Rickford:
Thank you.
The
Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rickford. [Français] Maintenant nous passon au Bloc. Monsieur
Lemay, trois minutes.
M. Marc
Lemay: Madame, avez-vous vu le rapport de rendement du 31 mars 2008? Si
vous, l'avez lu, je vais vous rappeler la page 15.
Cette page est en français, en anglais je ne l'ai pas.
« Résolution des questions des pensionnats indiens J'ai une
question pour vous. Quel est le rôle de l'honorable
— permettez-moi de dire l'honorable Frank Iacobucci parce quand on a siégé
à la Cour Suprême on mérite ce titre, c'est un très bon juge —Frank
Iacobucci aujourd'hui en cet extraordinaire jour du 12 février dans la
désignation des nouveaux commissaires? [English]
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Justice Iacobucci was appointed by the parties to chair a
process for finding a resolution after Justice [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Je vais vous poser une question difficile. Si vous aviez une attente
à exprimer à l'égard de notre comité, qu'attendez-vous de nous, comment
pouvons-nous vous aider dans ce processus pour que ça
aille plus vite, mieux? Y a-t-il quelque chose qu'on peut faire ici pour vous
aider? [English]
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Thank you for that offer. Again, we're waiting anxiously
for a new commission to be appointed and maybe that's a question you could ask
the new commission when they're on board. We're continuing to do whatever we
can to get ready for that new commission. I appreciate the offer. [Français]
M. Marc
Lemay: Alors on dira aux conservateurs de se dépêcher. Ceci n'est pas votre
travail, c'est le nôtre. On parlera au ministre lorsqu'il
viendra. Comptez sur nous. À (1050)
Le
président: Merci, monsieur [English] Now, Mr. Albrecht, for three minutes.
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to follow up a bit on
this problem that we seem to have about the seven national events and I think
it's important that we read in context what has been said. The seven national
events are to promote awareness. There will be in addition to that community
events as they're requested. So I think it's important to keep that in
perspective for the public record and that every person who has been affected
will have the opportunity to tell their story in their community. The point I
want to come back to is a point that was raised by Mr. Duncan regarding the
possibility of people sharing their experiences in a safe, respectful,
culturally sensitive way, private one on one or public discussion. You
mentioned that one of the possibilities might be sharing in a group of up to
500 people. Are there any restrictions placed on those who will be sharing
their stories in terms of specifically naming people who might not have the
possibility to defend themselves. Possibly they're deceased. Possibly they're
in another area of the country. That's one of my concerns and you probably have
something in place for that but I'd like to hear you address that.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Yes, thank you. To clarify, what I had said was that I've
heard survivors talk in front of gatherings of 500. The national events, we
hope to have thousands and just on that point, we'll make sure that people who
are speaking, who are telling their stories will be prepared in advance. The
settlement agreement does say that people cannot be named. I can't remember
exactly what it says but--
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: Allegations cannot be raised without--
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Allegations, right, so we're making sure that we've got a
strategy. It might be hard to avoid 100% but we're doing everything we can to
make sure that the people at all of our gatherings are aware that they can't
speak about people who they may be accusing of crimes or whatever.
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: Thank you very much.
The
Chair: You still have another minute, if you wish.
Mr.
Harold Albrecht: One of my colleagues might want to use it.
The
Chair: Anybody? Okay. Then we'll got to Ms.
Crowder. Three minutes.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Mr. Chair, I want to come back again, to make sure I'm understanding this. You've indicated that the agreement
says that there's an interim report which is the two-year report but there is
no final report?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Right, not according to the settlement agreement.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: Not according to the settlement .So there will be no final
reporting out on results, events, accounting for how public money was spent, in
a final report, other than the normal budget cycle?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: I would expect that there would be.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: But there's no requirement.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: I'm not sure. There's no requirement but I can't imagine
that the commissioners won't want to present a final report.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: It's pretty shocking, actually. I'm surprised. I know this isn't
your responsibility but I just want to be on record saying how surprising it is
that you have something that has a significant mandate with significant public
funds attached to it hoping to achieve significant results and there's no final
reporting process. That's pretty appalling so I'm hoping that the commissioners
will see fit to take that responsibility on to do that. In terms of
the independence in the relationship with the department, I think part of the
concern--this has to do with trust-building--is that people were hoping to see
the secretariat operate quite independently, and I respect the fact that there
is a need to get information from the department but it sounds like between
staff coming over from Indian and Northern Affairs, and in the absence of
having any kind of other reporting relationship, I think there are some optics
around the independence of the secretariat. So my
question to you is twofold. One, how are you going to regenerate that trust in
the public and in the survivors that your secretariat is independent and
operating at arms length, and two, what are you going to do about the damage
control? Could you tell me what your plans are to address those issues?
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: With regard to the independence of the secretariat, at this
point, because we are in a transition stage and we don't have our money, our
own funding yet, we depend on the department for corporate services, but it's
very much at a working technical level. They don't interfere at all in our
policies or in the work that we're doing to move forward. They're providing
corporate services such as procurement services and ITAR services, but only,
hopefully, until we get our money on April 1st. So the issue
of independence really hasn't come up, I don't think. À (1055)
Ms. Jean
Crowder: I think there are some optics around it,
though, and I think that's the piece that you're going to have to deal with
because just saying, “Trust me, we're independent”, isn't going to work for
people.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: Right, but after April 1st we'll have cut that relationship
and we'll be getting our corporate services elsewhere.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: And what about the--
The
Chair: That's it, I'm sorry, Ms. Crowder. We're going
to go back to Mr. Payne for one minute and we'll finish up this round. Mr. Payne. [Français]
M. LaVar
Payne: Merci monsieur le président. [English] You did talk
about the secretariat and I'd just like to kind of ask you a question around
how far along are you in completing the work on the
secretariat and when that might be completed.
Mrs.
Aideen Nabigon: A lot of the work that we've been doing, as you can
imagine, over the past five or six months that I've been there is just standing
up the secretariat as a federal government department. We had to get our
Treasury Board submission done and approved. We've done an organization chart
so that we can start hiring staff--it's currently being approved by the Public
Service Commission--and we've entered into an MOU with the Canadian Human
Rights Commission to provide us with corporate services after April 1st. At this
point, really, we're getting to that point where we've got a strong foundation
in place for the secretariat as a functional department to support the
commission when it comes on board. As I
mentioned, we've been developing the policies and the initiatives for moving forward
on the mandate activities to the extent that we can, implementing Schedule “N”,
but being careful not to commit a future chair to a direction that he or she
may not want to go in.
The
Chair: That will conclude it. [Français] Merci madame Nabigon. Nous avons apprécié
votre présentation. [English] Thank you to
all members as well. You don't need to hear this from me, but I thought all of
the questions today were thoughtful and precise and I think very well done. There's just
one item of follow up. Before we adjourn here, as a follow up to our last
meeting the question came out in regards to the circulation of CDs for the
notices of appointment that you will be circulated on automatically. This can
be done on request now. You should
be reminded that the Standing Orders provide 30 sitting days for the time to
consider those questions, but they will and can be circulated to you in
accordance with the Standing Orders on request. So we'll get those out to you
and that was the one item that we had left over from the last meeting. Madam
Crowder.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: This room is ridiculously small.
The
Chair: I agree.
Ms. Jean
Crowder: I really urge us to find a room that accommodates the staff and
witnesses and their staff and other people who want to sit in.
The
Chair: Yes, there's no question. Right now, you may know, the Thank you
very much, ladies and gentlemen. The meeting is adjourned.
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