IrSSA offered former students lump sum compensation through the Common Experience Payment (CEP) with an average lump sum payment of $28,000. The CEP, a component of the $1.9 billion Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, was “part of a holistic and comprehensive response to the legacy of the Indian Residential School.” Payments were higher for more serious cases of abuse. [1]:1[18] The PRC recognized “the experience of living in one or more residential schools and its implications. All former students who lived in a recognized residential school and were still alive on May 30, 2005 were eligible for the CEP. These included First Nations, Métis and Inuit alumni. [3] This initial payment for each person attending the boarding school was $10,000 per person plus $3,000 per year. [2] The application deadline for the CEP was 19 September 2011, with some exceptions until 19 September 2012. As of December 31, 2012, “a total of 105,540 applications had been received under the Joint Payment for Experience. $1.62 billion was provided to “78,750 recipients,” representing 98% of the approximately 80,000 eligible alumni. [4] “Children as young as three years old were forcibly removed from their families and communities and taken to school,” the report said. The agreement was announced by the Canadian federal government on May 8, 2006 and implemented in September 2007. The five main components of the IRSSA are the Common Experience Payment (CEP), the Independent Assessment Process (IEP), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), commemoration, and health and healing services. [3] While the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) has distributed large sums of money as compensation and helped residential school survivors recover, the system is also subject to abuse.

For example, some former students who applied for additional compensation through the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) were victims of unethical private lawyers who charged their clients high fees in addition to the 15% they received from the Canadian government. While the regulation states that lawyers can charge their clients up to 15% for difficult cases, many lawyers have regularly charged this percentage, and others have applied unreasonable interest, fees and penalties. Chief Juror Dan Ish conducted investigations into several private lawyers involved in the IAP, which led, among other things, to deportation and exclusion from the IRRSA. Dan Ish, after retiring from his position as IAP`s chief juror, described the challenges with private lawyers who would illegally enjoy IRSSA benefits. They investigated Winnipeg lawyer Howard Tennenhouse, Calgary lawyer David Blott, Vancouver lawyer Stephen Bronstein, and many other lawyers. Ish “personally reported Tennenhouse to the Law Society of Manitoba, which eventually expelled the experienced lawyer and reimbursed the client nearly a million dollars. A Vancouver judge barred Blott and others he worked with from working more in the IAP after plaintiffs complained that they had been wrongly charged loans, fees, penalties and interest – something prohibited by the IAP. And just last month, the IRSAS called for an investigation into Bronstein, but merely “examined” his practice and his alleged connection to a pardoned murderer who conducted IAP registration work. [27] In 2012, the Law Society of Manitoba excluded Tennenhouse for life. He pleaded guilty and agreed to reimburse the “$950,000 in additional costs” he charged 55 former residential school students. [28] [29] In 2014, when the Law Society of Alberta excluded Calgary lawyer David Blott “from misconduct in his management of settlements for survivors of residential school abuse,” Blott resigned. [14] “The investigation into Blott`s action cost taxpayers $3.5 million.” [27] Ivon Johnny, a convicted murderer, was stripped of parole in January 2013 after “threatening and blackmailing charges.

significant amounts of money from vulnerable and, in some cases, cognitively impaired applicants [FSRI]. In February 2013, “B.C. Under this Act, lawyers are “expressly prohibited from assigning any portion of the IAP`s compensation.” “because IPA applicants were considered particularly vulnerable.” [38] Since 2000, MLG has represented the client and her son. The final report Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future documents the tragic experiences of some 150,000 Canadian residential school survivors. Implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement began on September 19, 2007. The settlement agreement represents the consensus reached between former student legal advisors, Church legal counsel, the Assembly of First Nations, other Indigenous organizations, and the Government of Canada. The implementation of this historic agreement provides a just and lasting solution to the heritage of Indian boarding schools. While in Canada there were residential schools in New France as early as the 17th century, the residential school system did not develop until after the passage of the Indian Act in 1876, which gave the federal government the right and responsibility to educate (and assimilate) Indigenous peoples in Canada. Beginning in the 1880s, the government worked with Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to establish a residential school system across Canada.

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