NDP, Green Party call for new law to fix problems with Indigenous class action lawsuit settlements
The federal NDP and Green Party are calling on the fed‐ eral government to intro‐ duce a new law similar to one used by the U.S. for 9/11 victims to address problems with six Indige‐ nous class action lawsuit settlement agreements.
Nunavut NDP MP Lori Idlout and Green Party Deputy Leader Jonathan Ped‐ neault sent a letter to three federal ministers on Wednes‐ day urging them to create an Indigenous Survivors Act.
The proposed legislation would allow First Nations, Métis and Inuit survivors mis‐ treated by the federal gov‐ ernment to apply for com‐ pensation and update their claims under the act after deadlines pass in their class action settlement agreemen‐ ts.
"The fact that the govern‐ ment of Canada mistreated Indigenous Peoples is one thing," Idlout and Pedneault wrote in a letter obtained by CBC News, adding that the "strict deadlines imposed for claims to be completed" is just another in a "long list of injustices."
Idlout and Pedneault said there are precedents for such a move, including the U.S. government's 9/11 victim compensation fund, which has a deadline that extends to 2090.
They also point to Ontari‐ o's compensation plan for the contaminated blood scandal, which provided up to $25,000 to people who de‐ veloped hepatitis C through tainted blood before 1986 and after 1990, without any deadline to apply.
Greens and NDP say claims processes too short
Their letter was sent to Jus‐ tice Minister Arif Virani, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasan‐ garee and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also deputy prime minister.
The offices of the three ministers did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News.
The proposal follows a CBC News investigation that uncovered allegations that federal Indian day school sur‐ vivors were shortchanged and retraumatized by the compensation process for a multi-billion dollar settle‐ ment agreement with Ot‐ tawa.
Idlout and Pedneault called for that deal to be re‐ opened. Now, they want the government to create a fund under the act with an unde‐ termined but finite amount of money to pay individual compensation for outstand‐ ing and updated claims.
The six Indigenous class action settlements they want the proposed act to address are the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the Newfound‐ land and Labrador residential school settlement, the Sixties Scoop settlement, the federal Indian day school settlement, the day school scholar settle‐ ment and the child welfare settlement.
The application periods for these settlements ranged between six months to five years. Any survivor who mis‐ sed those deadlines currently has no recourse unless they opted out of the agreements.
The Greens and NDP are calling for a trauma-informed process to fix still outstand‐ ing issues from the settle‐ ments, which were supposed to provide a measure of jus‐ tice.
"Because of these ex‐ tremely short deadlines and the ways in which these claims, these settlements were set up, they either did‐ n't get the amount they were entitled to or didn't even ap‐ ply," Pedneault said.