Paperwork Holding Up IAP Resolutions: Merchant
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 14:10
A lawyer who has helped residential school survivors receive settlements says unnecessary documentation is holding up the Independent Assessment Process.
The IAP is a complex point system, separate from the standard compensation package, that is based on emotional, physical, and or sexual abuse suffered by survivors.
Tony Merchant says government lawyers require all sorts of information from various sources, from medical and criminal justice authorities to social services.
“It’s six months, eight months often, after an application is received, before the government says, ‘Yes, enough paper has been accumulated.’ Notwithstanding the fact that you go before the adjudicator, and by and large, all of these documents that the government has demanded be assembled are irrelevant. And by now, the government lawyers ought to know that these things will be irrelevant,” Merchant says.
Merchant says the government is also dragging its feet when it comes to paying the settlements.
He says it should take two to three weeks when it’s actually taking a minimum of two months, and sometimes up to six.
FSIN vice-chief Lyle Whitefish believes there is a backlog of cases because there is a shortage of adjudicators in Saskatchewan.
Whitefish says it is painful in the first place for survivors to go through the IAP, which is made worse by the delays.
“And then we have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission talking about moving forward and reconciling, when there’s so much unsettled business currently in the IAP process — and as well as going back to the initial compensation piece is also currently in question, because a lot of our survivors are still owed years, missing years,” he says.
Whitefish would like to see more adjudicators in the province, as well as others working here to expedite payments.