Residential schools commission delays may need to be addressed: Iacobucci

A committee established to select three new members of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission has just started to accept names for potential candidates, says the committee's chairman.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci was appointed to chair the selection committee late last month, after the commission's chairman and two members all said they would step down.

Their resignations has delayed the commission's five-year mandate, set under the federal government's Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

"One of the questions to answer is does that mean that the agreement would have to be amended?" Iacobucci told CBC News.

"I don't want to speculate on that, but that will be a question. And if it needs to be amended, then it needs to be approved."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created as a result of the settlement agreement, which was negotiated in 2006 between former students, churches, the federal government, the Assembly of First Nations and other aboriginal organizations.

The commission is responsible for documenting the generations of abuse that took place in the government-funded, church-run schools and to find a way to move past those experiences.

Iacobucci's selection committee also includes Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, as well as representatives for the Inuit, Métis, the Department of Indian Affairs, churches and claimants.

Iacobucci would not speculate on when commission hearings will actually begin.