Honour Walk: Residential schools students say they’ve been hurt by law firm
The people who search for former students for Blott and Company work for a company called Honour Walk.
The people who search for former students for Blott and Company work for a company called Honour Walk.
To get into the IAP process, you must fill out a 21-page application form and then prepare for a hearing where adjudicators will question you to ensure your claims are legitimate. The IAP Secretariat encourages former students to retain a lawyer to help them with this complex process.
Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler and eight other provincial court judges in different regions of the country supervise the settlement agreement. Justice Winkler has retained class action lawyer Randy Bennett to assist him. Since this is a court-approved and court-monitored process, the court has the authority to oversee and intervene as necessary.
In this story, we are talking about clients involved in the Independent Assessment Process or IAP. The IAP is a very bureaucratic and complex system set up under the Indian Residential Schools Class Action Settlement Agreement to decide whether the former students deserve to be compensated for physical and sexual abuse they endured in the schools as children – and if so, how much that compensation should be.
On November 10, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown ordered an investigation into the allegations made against a Calgary law firm. We do not know how many of the Blott and Company lawyers are facing these allegations.
They’re in a complicated bureaucratic process because they were victimized at residential schools. But they’re not pleased with the law firm that signed them up as clients.
The commission created to delve into the dark history of Indian residential schools in Canada says it can’t afford to execute its full mandate to collect historical records because the federal government and the churches won’t pay for the costs.
Former students of residential schools allege a Calgary law firm handling their compensation cases offered them loans at around 30 per cent interest and the option of buying electronic equipment like televisions, sound systems and computers, APTN National News has learned.
A Calgary law firm under fire for the way it handled residential school survivor compensation cases was cleared in two earlier peer reviews, a lawyer representing the firm says.