NTI mounts legal action to expand list of residential schools

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. wants to hear from students who lived at the Kivalliq Hall residence while attending high school in Rankin Inlet in the 1980s.

NTI is collecting the names of former students to prepare for legal action, when the organization hopes to have Kivalliq Hall added to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement’s list of schools.

NTI is mounting the case to ensure that former students of the residence are eligible for compensation under the settlement’s Common Experience Payment, the federal program that recognizes the impact of residing at a residential school.

If successful, Kivalliq Hall students would also be eligible for compensation under the independent assessment process, a separate program aimed at former students who suffered sexual or serious physical abuse.

Kivalliq Hall is currently not on the list of schools recognized under the federal settlement agreement, despite requests from former students to add it to the list.

NTI has appealed that decision by filing the request for decision with the Nunavut Court of Justice last fall.

It’s a process that NTI has undertaken on behalf of a number of Nunavut’s former students who stayed at hostels in the 1950s and 1960s which weren’t recognized under the settlement agreement.

In some cases, Inuit applicants have been denied compensation because it’s unclear whether or not the federal government had the sole responsibility over the particular school they attended.

NTI hopes to expand the list of schools approved under the settlement agreement to help more Inuit gain access to compensation.

According to the federal government’s latest numbers from August 2011, 4,364 Inuit have applied and received a common experience payment cheque.

Of those claimants, 2,451 come from Nunavut.

Eligible former students receive $10,000 under the common experience payment for the first year of school they attended and $3,000 for each additional year.

The deadline to apply for the payment was September, 2011, although the program is still processing appeals and reviews of denied applications. Independent assessment process applicants have until September, 2012 to apply.

Former Kivalliq Hall students can contact NTI’s legal counsel Sandra Omik by phone at 1-888-646-0006 or 867-975-4900 or by email at somik@tunngavik.com to provide her with their information.