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Are form-filling companies scamming Residential School claimants?

Former students of the residential school system have devastating memories of abuse. Now the man overseeing claims for compensation says some are being taken advantage of all over again, losing thousands in payouts to unreasonable fees....
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The Current24:00Are form-filling companies scamming Residential School claimants? - April 30, 2014
Former students of the residential school system have devastating memories of abuse. Now the man overseeing claims for compensation says some are being taken advantage of all over again, losing thousands in payouts to unreasonable fees.


They use to call us stupid...they use to call us dummy....il savage! That's a degradation in its own. I remember this nun asked the bigger girls to help her. To get this girl. These bigger girls didn't want to but they were instructed to. They were instructed to hold her down and that nun hit her with a strap. That kind of humiliation in front of all the girls.Eva Cardinal, former Residential School student

Eva Cardinal was seven when she first set foot in one of Canada's now notorious Indian Residential Schools. And what she experienced left scars and gave her nightmares for the rest of her life.


Today, many aboriginal Canadians seek and receive compensation for the abuse they suffered in Residential Schools. However, The Independent Assessment Process, the body that assesses their claims and awards compensation, says some of these former students may be getting scammed.

  • Dan Shapiro is the Chief Adjudicator of the Independent Assessment Process, or IAP. Last week, he brought legal action to try to fix the problem. He was in our Montreal studio.

  • Allan Fineblit is the CEO of the Manitoba Law Society, the body that governs all lawyers practicing in Manitoba. He was in Winnipeg.

The company alleged to be involved in this case has since gone out of business. We approached the lawyer involved in this case and asked him to give us his side of the story. His lawyer declined on his behalf. None of the allegations has been proven in court.


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This segment was produced by The Current's Gord Westmacott.

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