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Residential school survivors must act to preserve their records

The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat is urging residential school survivors to act if they want their claims records preserved.

“We want to tell claimants what their options are,” said secretariat spokesperson Michael Tansey.

The secretariat is an independent tribunal that has been deciding how much compensation is paid to people abused at the nation’s residential schools.

The Catholic Church needs to do more than apologize over residential schools

Evelyn Korkmaz is not waiting to see if she’ll receive an official invitation from the Vatican to attend the historic Papal Summit on sexual abuse.

While Pope Francis and the world’s Catholic bishops meet inside Vatican City walls from Feb. 21 to 24, Korkmaz, a survivor of the notorious St. Anne’s Indian Residential School, will join other global survivors in Rome as they hold an alternate “Ending Clergy Abuse” event...

...To that end, the church must own up to its moral obligation and pay the $21 million owed to survivors, as set out in the 2006 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. That would go a long way to taking responsibility.

Former TRC chair encourages residential school survivors to save records

Former residential school students are being asked to make a decision about the fate of their confidential abuse claims.

They can keep, share or destroy their Independent Assessment Process (IAP) or earlier Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADS) records by filling out a form at the website Myrecordsmychoice.

Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), hopes former students opt to preserve their personal experiences.

Residential school survivor wants probe of how Ontario law society handled lawyer's conduct review

A residential school survivor in northwestern Ontario is calling for an independent probe into the way the province's law society handled a conduct review of a lawyer accused of mishandling settlement claims.

Garnet Angeconeb said he wants to see Canada's Department of Justice investigate the process undertaken by the Law Society of Ontario that examined the conduct of Kenora lawyer Doug Keshen, who was accused by more than a dozen residential school survivors of mishandling their claims received from Canada's Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Survivors can choose to keep or destroy residential school adjudication records

Indian residential school survivors who participated in the Independent Assessment Process or its predecessor Alternative Dispute Resolution process must notify the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat within the next eight years if they want their records kept. If IRSAS receives no notification, those records will be destroyed.

Kathleen Keating, an adjudicator with the IRSAS, is reassured that the default setting will see records destroyed and privacy protected.  Keating presided over more than 500 IAP and ADR hearings and says all the people who spoke to her would want their records destroyed.

Potential class action against Calgary lawyer seeks millions for re-victimized residential school survivors

About 30 men and women from the Blood Tribe in southern Alberta, most of who are residential school survivors, listen closely as their lawyer Max Faille briefs them on what's next in their class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges their former Calgary lawyer and several other defendants failed to advocate for them and charged excessive fees.

Notification program for residential school records problematic, say interveners in case

Two people who acted as interveners in the Supreme Court case that decided the fate of residential school survivor testimonies are raising concerns about the process in place to preserve those records.

The program was formally announced on Monday. Survivors can choose to preserve their records or obtain a personal copy. If they don't do either, their testimonies will be destroyed on Sept. 19, 2027.

Survivants des pensionnats autochtones : vos documents, votre choix

Les survivants des pensionnats autochtones disposent d'un nouveau site Internet pour leur permettre de décider de ce qu'il faut faire des documents contenant des informations personnelles collectées durant les recours collectifs.

Si aucune décision n'est prise, ces documents seront détruits à partir du 19 septembre 2027.

New website helps residential school survivors preserve or destroy records

Residential school survivors who made claims against the government have a new tool to help them decide what becomes of their records.

The Indian Residential School Adjudication Secretariat has started a new program to alert survivors of their options regarding the records generated through the Independent Assessment Process or the earlier Alternative Dispute Resolution.

New website launched for residential school survivors to decide fate of their records

The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat has launched a new program for survivors of the residential school system to decide what happens to records of claims they’ve made of abuse within the schools.

It’s directing survivors to a new website where they can download a form to request a personal copy of their abuse claim records and, if they wish, share them with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Former residential school students must act if they want claims records preserved, tribunal warns

The independent tribunal that oversees the process for determining how much compensation is paid to people abused at Canada’s Indian Residential Schools is warning former students that documents related to their claims will be destroyed unless they take steps to have them preserved.

The records contain intimate details of the physical, sexual and emotional trauma suffered by more than 38,000 former students, and the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat is launching a website to inform claimants about their range of options.

Cases of residential school abuse uncompensated because of signature rule

Legitimate cases of residential school abuse are going uncompensated under a class-action settlement because the victims died without signing an application form, a situation one lawyer calls arbitrary and the fault of the federal government.

In at least one such case, compensation was initially awarded in March last year to relatives of a victim but taken back after a review determined the deceased applicant had never signed the application form.

Deceased residential school survivor's compensation claim overturned for lack of signature

The body overseeing the compensation process for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement has overturned an award to the family of a deceased residential school survivor because the claim application did not have his signature.

The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat oversees the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) for compensation for specific claims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and other wrongful acts that caused serious psychological harms to former students....

...Secretariat spokesman Michael Tansey acknowledged there were conflicting decisions on the issue of whether a family member could sign an application on behalf of a deceased former student.