The single mother of two young children needed a job. A non-Aboriginal woman, she was educated at First Nations University of Canada. Her two young children are of Anishnabe heritage and she deeply cares about First Nation people. She saw the chance to work as a form filler as an opportunity to do a job she could be proud of.
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.
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 British Columbia court has lifted a freeze on dozens of residential school survivor compensation cases handled by a Calgary law firm.
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