Media.Knet.Ca

Forest fires moving to within 10km of Deer Lake are forcing the evacuation of more residents. There are now only 100 to 150 people left in Deer Lake, a community of one thousand, reports Jeremy Sawanas.

People with breathing problems are also being evacuated from Sandy Lake and Keewaywin.

The two stories below describe the challenges for everyone.

From http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/13/ontario-fires.html

700 leave homes as Ontario forest fires burn
Sept 13 2006

Hundreds of people have left their homes in "bone-dry" northwestern Ontario, where fire crews are struggling to control more than 300 fires burning in the region.

 Ontario Thunder Bay Deer Lake Sandy Lake Lightning strikes have caused most of the fires burning in the area northwest of Thunder Bay, including the 60 new fires that started on Tuesday, said Debbie MacLean, with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

"Currently, there are about 300 fires burning," she said of the region north of Lake Superior, stretching from Thunder Bay to Rainy River. "It's bone-dry in Central Canada."

About 700 people have left their homes in the northern communities of Deer Lake, Sandy Lake and Keewaywin because of heavy smoke from the fires.

The evacuees, who include children, seniors and people with respiratory problems, are being housed in various communities in the municipality of Greenstone, said its mayor, Michael Power.

"It's a terrible thing to say but we're old hands at this," said Power. "For many years the community of Geraldton in Greenstone has been doing this, acting as a host to people who flee their homes from fires."

Power said nurses from the various communities travelled to Greenstone with the evacuees to look after their daily needs.

Dozens of new fires daily

The influx is a challenge for Greenstone's resources and public employees, he said, but it's something they feel they have to do.

"You can't stand by and see your fellow human being in a time of need not being welcomed and not do everything you possibly can to ease the stress they face when they flee their home and they don’t know what they're going back to," Power said.

He said the municipality is expecting additional evacuees as emergencies are called in other communities.

MacLean said local fire crews are working long hours to battle the dozens of small blazes popping up daily. Firefighters are managing to contain about 40 fires per day, but anywhere from 60 to 100 new fires start daily, she said.

"The sheer number of fires is outpacing the resources we have," said MacLean.

Heavy smoke a problem

David Cleaveley, a fire officer with the Natural Resources Department, said the situation is one of the worst department staff can remember this late in the year.

Many of the problems in the northern communities are caused by heavy smoke from the fires.

"The smoke is so thick we can't even land planes there to talk to the people," Cleaveley said.

He said 21 heavy water bombers are being used to fight the fires.

Local crews were cut in half after student firefighters returned to school, Cleaveley said, but crews are starting to trickle in from other provinces, including Saskatchewan and Quebec.

++++++++++++

From http://www.tbsource.com/localnews/index.asp?cid=86672

Wildfires are straining resources
Tb News Source - 9/12/2006

Fire concerns continue to grow across the northwest and have now led to more evacuations.

Almost 300 residents of the remote community of Deer Lake were flown to Geraldton Monday and more are on the way.

Smoke from nearby fires has been drifting into the community, located about 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, for over a week but the fires have moved to within ten kilometres of the town, forcing even more residents out.

Plans call for about 260 more residents to be flown out Tuesday and Wednesday.

About 70 residents of Sandy Lake and 120 from Keewaywin are also being flown to Geraldton because of smoke concerns. All this comes as fire crews continue to battle the large numbers of new fire outbreaks. There were 54 new starts recorded Monday and are now over 250 active fires across the region, burning over 30,000 hectares.

Fire information officer Deb MacLean says bone-dry conditions have created a critical situation and warns that any one fire could become a ``big problem.''

MacLean says the fires are straining firefighting resources to the limit and a depleted staff is unable to keep up with the workload. Quebec has sent in crews to help out, but she says most other provinces face similar challenges and don't have anyone to spare. 

From http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=uri:2006-09-07T221311Z_01_N07285342_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-ENVIRONMENT-CANADA-WATER-COL.XML&pageNumber=0&summit=

Native groups join to protect water supply
Thu Sep 7, 2006 6:13 PM EDT
 
By Jeffrey Jones
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Booming oil and gas development in Western and Northern Canada has prompted native groups to build a united front to better protect the vast region's water resources, aboriginal leaders said on Thursday.

About 200 First Nations representatives from Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories gathered in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., this week for a three-day conference on how to stem worsening water quality and diminishing supplies as a result of industrial development.

It was hosted by Deh Cho First Nation Grand Chief Herb Norwegian, who is holding out against the C$7.5 billion ($6.8 billion) Mackenzie Valley pipeline that would cross his people's land.

As many as 60 aboriginal groups live on a huge watershed that encompasses much of the oil- and gas-rich provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Norwegian told Reuters by telephone. The resource is considered sacred in native cultures.

"The idea here is that this becomes a catalyst so people can actually start focusing on this really serious issue of water," he said.

"In Canada we have an abundance and we take it for granted, but I think we need to be very serious about what we have at our doorsteps. First Nations have been using it for thousands of years and now we want to have something done about the problems that are coming our direction."

Poor water quality on native reserves across Canada has made international headlines in recent years. In 2005, 1,200 people from the Kashechewan Cree reserve in northern Ontario were evacuated due to contaminated water.

A top concern is water availability in northeastern Alberta, where surging oil prices have sparked an oil sands investment boom valued at more than C$100 billion. The industry uses huge volumes of water to extract the tar-like bitumen.

The level of the Athabasca River has dropped and residents have been told to avoid drinking the water or eating the fish, said Jean L'hommecourt of the Fort McKay First Nation, which is located in the midst of most of the developments.

"I'm not sure about what can be done to replenish the water again, because that's something that probably can't be fixed unless all the industry stops taking water from the Athabasca River to produce their oil," L'hommecourt said.

The Athabasca flows more than 1,500 km (935 miles) from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta. Those waters then flow north more than another 2,000 km (1,200 miles) via the Slave and Mackenzie rivers to the Arctic Ocean.

The leaders said they aim to hold another water conference next year, and invite industry and government representatives to what could become a regular round-table session.

However, Pat Marcel, an elder and tribal chairman from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, said he believed governments with visions of rich royalty and tax revenues have ceded at least some of their protection powers to industry, forcing native groups to forge their own coalition.

"First Nations are seeking help by joining with the Deh Cho territories and (British Columbia native groups). I think we can have a very successful caucus here," Marcel said.

Water supply is already a major issue in northeastern British Columbia, site of a deep natural gas and coal development rush, as well as hydroelectric dams, said Chief Roland Wilson of the West Moberly First Nation.

Much of the activity is geared for export to satisfy the immense energy demand of the United States.

"It's so California can run their air conditioners 24 hours a day down there and keep them all nice and cozy, while the First Nations people up here have to suffer the impacts," he said.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

The CBC news story, "Reserve schools worried about internet cuts", (see below) highlights a funding problem that will be affecting First Nation schools across the country starting in early 2007.
 
Keewaytinook Okimakanak has delivered Industry Canada’s First Nations SchoolNet program in its present format in partnership with First Nation schools across Ontario since December 2002. The program has included working with the schools to develop subsidized broadband connections to better serve the students, staff and community. These connectivity subsidies from the Industry Canada’s First Nations SchoolNet program will end as of December of this year for the First Nation schools across Ontario.

Presently there are no other plans in place from the Federal government to support First Nation schools to sustain these broadband connections starting in January. Many schools have T1 connections that support video conferencing and other broadband applications. Some of the schools are sharing the costs of these connections with other local community organizations (the health centre and the band office). The school connectivity subsidy is helping remote and rural schools to access resources too often taken for granted in urban centres.

There is a need to make sure that all Members of Parliament are made aware of the impact of this decision. Hopefully additional press coverage and discussions in Parliament will provide the pressure required to ensure the Federal government announces an alternative program and the dollars necessary to help First Nation schools to stay connected with the rest of the world.

For more information, contact ...

Brian Beaton
Coordinator, K-Net Services
Keewaytinook Okimakanak
Box 1439, 115 King Street
Sioux Lookout, ON, P8T 1B9
Tel: 807-737-1135 or toll free at 877-737-KNET(5638) ext 1251
Fax: 807-737-1720
IP and ISDN Video conferencing available
e-mail: brian.beaton@knet.ca
web: http://knet.ca

---------------------------------------------------------------

From CBC Online ... http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2006/09/08/schools-net.html

Reserve schools worried about internet cuts
Sept 8, 2006 - CBC News

Some cash-strapped schools on Saskatchewan First Nations reserves are worried they may soon lose their internet connections — a move some educators say could be a disaster for learning.

Early next year, the money will run out for the federal First Nations SchoolNet program, which providing internet access to reserve schools across Canada, including 170 in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The program has been in place since 2002.

A spokesperson from Industry Canada, which runs the program along with regional  management groups, said there's no plan to reinstate funding. The department doesn't know if there will be more money available later.

With the program gone, some schools would need to come up with an extra $1,000 a month — money they say they don't have.

Brian McCarthy, a teacher in the northern community of Patuanak, said he's not sure how the school will adapt when the money runs out, although research materials are always a crucial requirement.

"Our whole media studies program is based on the internet," he said. "Our library is very ill-equipped, so all of our classes use the internet access for research."

Teachers, too, are dependent on the net connection.

"Between eight and nine in the morning, at least two-thirds of our teachers are on the internet researching material for the classes," McCarthy said.

ONTARIO's ABORIGINAL TOBACCO STRATEGY
 Tobacco Wise 
Request for Proposal 2006

Proposal Deadline Date:  September 29, 2006 12:00 pm

For a downloadable version of this document please go to:
www.tobaccowise.com
Or
http://www.cancercare.on.ca/index_AboriginalCancerStrategy.htm

Introduction - Be Tobacco Wise …..Keep It Sacred

To honor the role of Aboriginal young people as the future of Aboriginal people and the initiators of change in their communities the Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy (ATS) is pleased to announce the availability of project funds for action-oriented Tobacco Wise Projects for young people between the ages of 8-14.

Project funds are available for projects that empower young people;  provide experiential opportunities that engage young people; and that build community capacity in tobacco wise knowledge, skills and resources.

Background

The ATS is a program with the Aboriginal Cancer Care Unit in the Division of Preventive Oncology at Cancer Care Ontario.  Cancer Care Ontario is the Ontario Government’s principal advisor on cancer care and is a provincial resource for the cancer prevention and care system.

The purpose of the ATS is to promote “tobacco wise” communities. A tobacco wise community knows the difference between traditional tobacco and commercial tobacco and has the knowledge, commitment, resources and skills to mobilize and implement strategies to promote and protect the well being of its members.

The Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy Working Group (ATSWG) is a group of Aboriginal people identified for their commitment to and knowledge of tobacco issues in the Aboriginal community.  These members represent a cross-section of Aboriginal communities across Ontario. This body of Aboriginal Tobacco Champions, provide guidance to the strategy that is rooted in community-based knowledge and action.

In 2005 the ATSWG developed the Seven Generations Plan.  This plan established a vision for addressing the problem of commercial tobacco in our communities.  Aboriginal Elders provided knowledge, guidance and input into the plan.  The most immediate priorities identified in the plan include: a focus on Aboriginal youth, traditional tobacco, and continued community based capacity building.  The committee also identified a need to empower youth through skill development.  The 2006-2007 ATS RFP is another step toward fulfilling the Tobacco Wise Seven Generations vision.

For more information regarding the Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy (ATS) please visit:
http://www.tobaccowise.com

For more information regarding the Aboriginal Cancer Strategy please visit: http://www.cancercare.on.ca/index_AboriginalCancerStrategy.htm

The Approach - Integration

Studies have shown tobacco messaging is more effective when combined with other issues affecting youth. 

1. In 2006 the ATS asked Aboriginal youth across Ontario if and how they would like to be involved in an Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy.  The survey results indicated arts, media and sports activities were preferred by youth as methods for involvement.  We strongly encourage applicants to involve young people in promoting the tobacco wise message through these mediums.
2. We recognize the importance of collaboration with local schools when working with young people.  We encourage applicants to link with their local schools to identify  in-school components to their project.  Some examples of linkages are: school based recruitment of young people to participate in project activities, classroom based sessions, and/or school based events.   

Meaningful Involvement  

We are looking for projects that engage young people in meaningful and empowering experiences.   This type of approach will require creativity, support and an investment from project leaders. 

Examples of meaningful involvement include but are not limited to:

• Projects building knowledge and skills, helping to prepare young people for healthy lives as capable, contributing and caring members of their family, community and nation 
• Projects engaging young people in planning through active and informed participation and are not designed by adults alone
• Projects involving young people in making the decisions that affect them personally and their communities as a whole.  

What kinds of projects are eligible?

In order to support Aboriginal young people on their path to becoming tobacco wise we encourage all applicants to focus their proposals in one or more of the following areas:
 
Focus Area: Sports and Recreational/Fitness Activities

Projects promoting sports or other fitness activities/events as a healthy and positive alternative to commercial tobacco use; or projects incorporating sports and physical programs into tobacco wise activities.  

Some examples include:

• sports/fitness activities including tobacco wise awareness activities during or after games
• tobacco wise sports clinics
• development and circulation of materials to help promote the importance of a tobacco-wise lifestyle as a factor in sports performance
• smoke-free sports and recreational/fitness events
• messages about tobacco wise lifestyles promoted throughout community events

Focus Area: Media

Projects promoting youth created media that provide young people with a place to voice their opinions about tobacco related issues and be heard in the media; or projects promoting education about mass media and its influence on young people.

Some examples include:

• News articles, investigative stories, ‘zines, opinion pieces, personal essays, radio announcements, poetry, photography publications
• Young people learning how to use video cameras and audio equipment to document the issues related to tobacco in their communities
• Young people learning skills needed for interviewing, reporting and writing fiction to express their views related to tobacco use
• Young people increasing their awareness of the influence the commercial tobacco industry has on young people through the media
• Young people receiving training to produce a creative radio program. Skills may include: interviewing, how to plan and host a live show, reporting and writing for radio

Focus Area:  Art

Project promoting the arts as a healthy and positive alternative to commercial tobacco use; or projects incorporating arts into tobacco wise activities (e.g. activities that promote a positive and powerful tobacco wise message).  

Some examples include:

• art activities (e.g.  moccasin making, painting, collage, drum making sculpture, mask making) including tobacco wise awareness activities during or after the activity
  performance art (e.g. theatre, traditional dance, drumming, music) promoting tobacco wise messaging
  creation of art pieces (e.g. traditional arts, murals, installation pieces, music, photography) promoting tobacco wise messaging
• smoke-free multi media art events
• messages about tobacco wise lifestyles promoted throughout an art event

Who can apply?

We are looking for applications from but not limited to youth groups, health workers, recreational leaders, teachers, coaches and child and youth workers interested in empowering youth to be good decision makers about their health and initiators of change in their community.

Any Aboriginal community or non-profit organization
Groups of children and youth not affiliated with an established organization may apply on their own if they have:

a)An agreement with a non-profit organization, school or library, to act as their “Fiscal Sponsor” (see Attachment C).  A Fiscal Sponsor is an established group that agrees to hold and manage project funds. 

* Please note: If we receive two or more applications from the same community, we might ask you to collaborate with the other applicant(s) to prevent duplication.

What activities are not eligible?

• Projects that duplicate programs or resources that already exist
• Projects that are delivered for profit (organization or individuals)

Amount of funding available: There is approximately $10,000 available per project.

How will groups be selected to receive funding?

1. We receive the RFP’s
2. We check to see the application is complete and pass it on to the Selection Committee
3. The Selection Committee rates and then selects the  projects to be funded

Due to funding limitations, it is possible not all eligible proposals will be selected.  Preference will be given to those projects that do not require additional funding for staff.

How will projects be rated?

Meaningful Involvement of Young People (25 pts)

Clearly explains how the project meaningfully involves young people in the overall project
Preference will be given to initiatives that clearly explain what tools and skills will be developed and what experiential activities the young people will be engaged in

Project Narrative (15 pts)

Describes the beginning, middle and end of the project
Demonstrates your preparation, organization, and thoughtfulness 
Includes one or more of the three key areas of focus (see page 3-4)

Action Plan (10 pts)

The Action Plan shows clear steps that lead to project completion by February 28, 2007
The Action Plan clearly identifies how the project will be evaluated
Action Plans must include, by March 15th, a Final Report which includes project evaluation findings

Budget (15 pts)

Budget is clearly linked to all activities identified in the project narrative and action plan
All funds allocated must be spent by February 28, 2007

Community Integration (15 pts)

Clearly explains how your project is linked with other initiatives/programs within your community. 

Evaluation Plan (20 pts) 

Clearly explains what is intended to be accomplished as a result of the project and what will be done to accomplish those ends.
Clearly describes the impacts/benefits/changes (project outcomes) that will occur as a result of the proposed project.  Some examples of impacts, benefits, changes include but are not limited to:

1. New knowledge/perceptions/attitudes (e.g.youth who realize smoking makes it difficult to breathe, making it more difficult to play sports; or youth who increase their knowledge regarding the manipulative behavior of the tobacco industry )
2. New skills (e.g. youth develop skills to resist peer pressure to smoke; or youth acquire media skills to develop their own media messages.
3. New conditions (e.g. increases in smoke free environments)

Clearly describes how the impacts/benefits/changes (project outcomes) identified will be measured.

* We recommend that you contact Theresa Sandy, Project Coordinator, for technical support regarding evaluation planning prior to submitting your proposal. 

What happens after my project has been selected?

We consider ourselves a resource for your project. We will stay in contact with you to ensure that you receive the technical support you need for project success. An initial telephone meeting will be held with the project contact to discuss project details such as:

• funding agreement
• evaluation.
• reporting 
• communication

How does my group apply?

To apply, submit an original application along with required attachments (see application Checklist – Attachment C) to the Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy at Cancer Care Ontario by:

Applying on line at www.tobaccowise.com
Or
http://www.cancercare.on.ca/index_AboriginalCancerStrategy.htm
Or
By faxing a copy to 416-971-6888

Please send an original signed copy by mail with all electronic or faxed applications.

Send in your completed application by:
12:00 p.m. on September 29, 2006

Please fax, courier, or mail your completed application to Pamela Johnson, Manager, Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy.  All applicants who submit their proposals by fax or on-line will be required to forward the original application package by mail or courier.

Fax:       416-971-6888 

E-mail:     Pamela.Johnson@cancercare.on.ca
Mail:

Pamela Johnson, Manager,
Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy
Aboriginal Cancer Care Unit,
Cancer Care Ontario
620 University Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2L7

If you have any questions please contact:               
Theresa Sandy,  Project Coordinator,
Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy 
Telephone: 1-416-971-9800 Ext: 3372.
Email: theresa.sandy@cancercare.on.ca

Regional Aboriginal Community Coodinator

Consider a career with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine

A new medical school for the whole of Northern Ontario, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine is a joint initiative between Lakehead and Laurentian Universities. With main campuses in Thunder Bay and Sudbury, we will have multiple teaching and research sites distributed across Northern Ontario, in large and small communities. The School contributes to improving the health of people in Northern Ontario.

Regional Aboriginal Community Coordinator
Competition 2006-283-BH
1 year contract Closing: September 15, 2006
Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario

Reporting directly to the Director, Aboriginal Affairs and indirectly to the Associate Dean – Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) on specific assignments, the incumbent will be responsible for assisting in annual preparation of and arranging for first-year medical student placements within Aboriginal communities.

Further information about this position is available at: http://www.normed.ca/units/human_resources/index.htm

Candidates are invited to submit a resume quoting the competition number no later than 4:00 p.m. on the closing date to:

Northern Ontario School of Medicine
935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, ON P3E 2C6
Attention: Human Resources
Email: Human.Resources@normed.ca
Fax: (705) 671-3880

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine is committed to equity in employment and encourages applications for all qualified applicants, including women, Aboriginal peoples, members of visible minorities and persons with disabilities.

While all responses will be appreciated and handled with the strictest confidence, only those being considered for interviews will be acknowledged.

OSHKI-PIMACHE-O-WIN EDUCATION & TRAINING INSTITUTE

eLearning Coordinator

Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education & Training Institute has been established under the mandate of the Chiefs of Nishnawbe Aski Nation to develop, design and deliver post-secondary and training programs. The Institute is an independent organization and currently offers courses in the areas of social services, information technology, business and administration, teacher education, language and culture.

The Institute is seeking an eLearning Coordinator to advance the development and delivery of technology-mediated post-secondary and training curriculum. Under the direction of the Program & Student Coordinator, this is an exciting opportunity for the successful candidate to provide information technology expertise to the Institute in the area of eLearning.

The eLearning Coordinator will:

• Complete an environmental scan of eLearning technology for application by the Institute and appropriate for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory
• Complete a strategic plan to design, develop, implement and evaluate information communication technology infrastructure to meet the post-secondary education and training needs of Nishnawbe Aski Nation community members and other learners, primarily in the area of post-secondary distance education.
• Work with the Program & Student Coordinator, as well as part-time instructors, to identify appropriate training models and methods of delivery, incorporating hardware and software, for sustainable intranet development.
• Promote models of curriculum and classroom organization that make effective use of eLearning; support the implementation of online courses, instructional web projects, and distance learning technologies.
• Help meet the needs of Oshki-Pimache-O-Win staff and instructors by coordinating and offering internal eLearning professional development activities as required.
• Liaise with First Nation communities and organizations across Northern Ontario, as well as professional organizations and regulatory bodies with regards to eLearning capacities.
• Seek financial support to develop a comprehensive eLearning solution package for the Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Institute.

Qualifications required:

• Post-secondary education in a related field.
• Experience in working with IT Services, including web server software, web server hardware, web applications, web authoring applications, web programming applications.
• Knowledge of Aboriginal culture.
• Experience in web-based curriculum design and distance education, preferably in an educational or First Nations organization.
• Understanding of eLearning technology and the process of eLearning curriculum development.

To submit a letter of interest and a resume for this position, please send to the attention of the:

Executive Director
Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education and Training Institute
106 Centennial Square, 3rd Floor,
Thunder Bay, ON
P7E 1H3
Telephone: 807-626-1880
Fax: 807-622-1818

Closing date for applications is Monday, September 18, 2006.

We thank you for your interest in Oshki-Pimache-O-Win, however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Calling All Youth!!!

The Nishnawbe Aski-Nation Youth Trust Fund is sponsoring the first ever NAN-wide creative arts competition for youth.

Ages:

• 12-18 years old
• 19-29 years old

The competition is open to youth in NAN territory. You can enter up to three (3) pieces of art in any medium with the following theme:

"Treaty commemration:  Celebrating the Past, Present & Future."

Types of Mediums include but not limited to:

• Painting, drawing, sketching, ceramics/glass, sculpture/installation, jewellery, photography, Film/video, website design/graphic design, airbrushing, collage, printmaking, carvings, mixed media, essays, poetry crafts(ie. beadwork, tamarack birds, birchbark baskets, quill work, mocassins, etc), masks, tattoos, traditional food preparation/recipes, plays, books, comics, storytelling, hand drum/pow wow songs & fashion.

The Deadline for submissions are:  October 31st, 2006

For Registrations and more info call:

Touchan Fiddler, Showcasing The Creative Spirit Coordinator @ (807) 774-3421 or

Catherine Cheechoo, Trust Fund President via NAN @ 1-800-465-9952

Email:  :  showcasingthecreativespirit@knet.ca

or ccheecho@nan.on.ca

Check out our site at

http://showcasingthecreativespirit.myknet.org

Delivered in Partnership with:

Nishnawbe Aski-Nation, Nishnawbe Aski-Nation Youth Council, Nishnawbe Aski-Nation Youth & Development, Thunder Bay Art Gallery & Wawatay News

Project Funding provided by:

The Trillium Foundation & The Laidlaw Foundation

Evacuation ordered as smoke blankets Ontario reserve
Sept 06 2006 - CBC News Online at http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/06/evacuation-smoke.html

Some residents of a remote community in northern Ontario were ordered to leave their homes Tuesday as more than 30 forest fires burned nearby.

About 200 people, mainly children, the elderly and those with respiratory problems, were told to leave the First Nation of Deer Lake, about 300 kilometres north of Red Lake, because smoke from a cluster of fires has been lingering over the community of 700.

According to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the evacuation order was imposed on Tuesday and the operation was expected to continue on Wednesday.

A reception centre in Geraldton, a community of more than 2,000 people north of Lake Superior, has been set up for people leaving the community.

There are more than 40 active fires across northern Ontario, mostly in the northwest.

As of Aug. 31, the ministry said 1,468 fires have burned about 20,562 hectares in the province.

Last year, 1,735 fires burned about 42,500 hectares in Ontario by the Labour Day long weekend.

With files from the Canadian Press

From MacLeans.Ca - September 04, 2006 at http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canada/article.jsp?content=20060911_133025_133025

White man's windfall by JONATHON GATEHOUSE

The biggest winner in the residential schools settlement is not a native. He's a lawyer named Tony Merchant, and his firm's take could hit $100 million. No wonder he has so many critics.

There are six Dictaphones spread out like a fan on the table in Tony Merchant's hotel-suite-*****-Ottawa-office, each labelled with the name of a different secretary. It's more efficient that way, as he bounces from file to file, shuffling through the stacks of legal documents set out before him. When the tapes are full, he couriers them home to Regina to be transcribed into letters, court submissions and statements of claim. Time is money.

Merchant may well be the busiest lawyer in Canada. By his own account, he billed an astounding 5,300 hours last year -- an average of almost 15 hours each and every day, devoted solely to his clients. (A lawyer who bills 2,000 hours annually is considered a top producer at most big Canadian firms, and that requires lots of late evenings and weekends.) The fact that Merchant sleeps only a few hours a night helps. So does his long-ago acquired habit of eating only one meal a day -- dinner. Still, it doesn't leave much time for family life, or his other passions, travel and politics. Merchant's wife, Pana, a Liberal senator for Saskatchewan, recalls a recent Christmas Day when they had five of Tony's clients scattered throughout the house, waiting to discuss their cases. 
 
Merchant's firm, the Merchant Law Group, employs about 40 lawyers, including his three sons, based mostly in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. It claims to have the largest family law practice in Canada, and is involved in more than two dozen class action lawsuits, including product liability claims against General Motors, Sears, and the makers of Paxil, Vioxx, and silicon breast implants, as well as actions on behalf of shareholders of Molson Inc. and Hollinger Inc. But that's not the legal work Tony Merchant has been banking on for the past decade.

This trim 61-year-old with the kind of preternaturally smooth skin and dark hair one used to associate with Dick Clark also claims to represent more than 10,000 former students of Indian residential schools -- and that's put his firm in line for the lion's share of the biggest legal payday in Canadian history. This week, an Ontario court begins the process of signing off on the federal government's new $1.9-billion settlement package for survivors of the state- and church-run Aboriginal education system. The proceedings, which will be followed by similar hearings in five other provinces and three territories between now and mid-October, were supposed to be a formality. No longer.

That's because the Merchant Law Group and the federal government are locked in a nasty battle over fees that threatens to delay -- if not derail -- the implementation of a deal designed to redress one of Canadian history's greatest wrongs. Merchant is sure what his take should be: $40 million upfront, and tens of millions more once special tribunals start handing out additional compensation to former students who were physically or sexually abused. In the past, he has publicly mused about hitting the $100-million mark. "Our evidence will support a payment of $70 million alone for the work we've already done," he says.

But Ottawa is balking, raising questions about just how many former students Merchant actually represents, and how much work his firm has really done on the files it does have. Government affidavits allege incidents of shoddy bookkeeping, questionable billing practices, and suggest that Merchant has many hundreds of phantom clients. Frank Iacobucci, a former Supreme Court justice now acting as the federal overseer of the residential school agreement, has declared that he has "very serious concerns about the information put forward by the Merchant Law Group to justify its position on legal fees." And a deal, struck last fall, to have a forensic accountant examine the firm's client base, files and bills, has fallen apart. Merchant, backed by the opinions of several provincial law societies, says the audits were a violation of solicitor-client privilege. And he's refusing to provide the government accountants with any more information. "We've complied with the verification process," says Merchant. "When we signed the deal there was never a word about pulling our files."

It's just the latest chapter in the saga of Tony Merchant vs. The World. In his own version, and to his many supporters, Merchant is a hero, one of the few people with the vision and drive to obtain justice for Aboriginals who were taken from their families and stripped of their language and culture in a state-sponsored assimilation. To his critics, including many native groups, he's a relentless self-promoter who exploited vulnerable clients in his quest for the big cheque. Merchant has been at the centre of controversy before, but this time, the stakes are huge. Across the country, an estimated 80,000 survivors are anxiously waiting for their compensation cheques. And Tony Merchant is taking a stand that won't make them happy: none of the victims are getting their money until he gets paid.

Home base is still Regina, but Tony Merchant seems pretty comfortable around Parliament Hill these days. He flashes his spousal ID to bypass the security checkpoints; they know him by name in the parliamentary restaurant. When a reporter comes to visit, he arranges to meet in his wife's Senate offices. The walls are decorated with photos of Merchant, and sometimes Pana, with Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien and other heavy hitters from the Liberal glory years. A thick packet of photocopied press clippings about Merchant's career sits on the coffee table. When the senator's conversation with her assistant, outside in the anteroom, becomes too distracting, he gets up and shuts the door. Power has its privileges. So, apparently, does being power's consort.

Merchant's Liberal pedigree can be traced back several generations. His grandfather and mother were both members of the Saskatchewan legislature. He won election himself in 1975, and staged an unsuccessful bid for the provincial Liberal leadership the next year. Merchant has also run federally on three occasions, losing each time. He was an early supporter of Chrétien's leadership ambitions. (This time, he and his family are lining up behind Michael Ignatieff.) And it is accepted wisdom in Saskatchewan legal circles that during the Liberal years Merchant was able to influence who was appointed to the federal bench. "I've been able to make some contributions about ideas of people over time," he says coyly.

It was not, therefore, unexpected to see a Merchant appointed to the Senate in 2002. The surprise was that it was Pana, not Tony, going to the Red Chamber. "There were discussions," says Merchant, "but it would have been impossible unless I was prepared to back away from practice. And I wasn't ready to do that." Regardless, Pana's Senate appointment has proven to be something of a two-for-one deal. Merchant, who boasts that he and his wife have only spent seven nights apart in their 35-year marriage, is now an Ottawa fixture.

For all his connections and visibility, however, the one area where Merchant never felt he held much federal sway was the residential school file. Chrétien, a former Indian affairs minister, didn't understand the scope of the problem, he says. Paul Martin was more sympathetic, but movement toward a settlement came only in the dying days of his minority government. "I think the jig was up," says Merchant. "Our firm had a huge number of cases moving forward."

In the spring of 2005, Martin signed a political agreement on residential schools with the Assembly of First Nations and appointed Iacobucci as an official knuckle-breaker, tasked with making all the parties sit down and hammer out a deal. An agreement in principle was reached last November. After the January federal election, the new Tory government spent months tweaking the settlement, trying to make it more politically palatable for its voters. The final deal, signed in early May, provides a "common experience payment" (CEP) for all the living survivors of the 130 boarding schools -- $10,000 for the first year they attended, and $3,000 for each additional year. (Those over 65 can already apply for a fast-tracked $8,000 advance on their compensation.) The landmark package also includes $125 million over five years for an Aboriginal Healing Foundation, $60 million for a truth and reconciliation commission, and $20 million for national and local commemorative projects. Sexual and physical abuse claims will be dealt with under something called the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), a low-stress, simplified hearing that aims to resolve 2,500 cases a year. In return, survivors will agree to drop all other legal claims against the government and churches.

Ottawa has attached a $1.9-billion price tag to the deal, but the true cost of the settlement package will depend on how many survivors come forward to share their experiences. The IAP awards are expected to be more generous than prior out-of-court settlements, which ranged from $5,000 to $10,000 for milder cases of physical abuse, and up to $245,000 for repeated cases of rape and molestation. Merchant puts the true value of the deal at closer to $5 billion, which in turn will mean tens of millions more in compensation for lawyers.

The government has already put aside more than $100 million for legal fees, demolishing the previous Canadian record. (In 2000, a national class action settlement for people who contracted hepatitis C from blood transfusions paid lawyers $56 million.) According to the agreement in principle, the Merchant Law Group, with more than half of all current claimants, would get $40 million. The National Consortium -- 19 firms from across the country that have been pressing other class actions -- will receive the same. Independent counsel -- dozens of small firms and individual lawyers with residential school clients -- will share the remaining $20 million. The lawyers involved have agreed not to deduct anything from their clients' CEP payouts, and to help any new claimants access the general compensation without charge.

The abuse payments are a different matter, however. Under the deal, the government will add 15 per cent to all amounts awarded by the IAP to help with legal fees, but lawyers remain free to deduct additional payments from their clients' compensation. Many survivors have contingency arrangements with their counsel, with some agreeing to hand over almost half of any settlement.

Legal fees are a touchy subject, and were reportedly a big sticking point for the Tories when they inherited the deal. The image of white lawyers raking in millions, while their poor native clients wait for cheques that might not even be enough to buy a new car, is not a palatable one. And there's no question that Merchant -- a man who admits to having visited a reserve only six or seven times in his life -- stands to be the biggest single winner. He wasn't the first lawyer in Canada to take on residential school cases, but whatever the exact number, he now has more than anyone else, and his client list grows by five or six a day. In 2005, he won the biggest award to date for a native school victim when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a man who had been sexually abused by a Saskatchewan school administrator was entitled to compensation. (Or, as Merchant's son Matthew bluntly put it in a letter to a client: "We just took a case to the SCOC and got in excess of $300,000 for a Survivor who had been fondled three times.")

Even Tony Merchant's fiercest critics concede that his legal strategy of flooding the courts with abuse claims -- he has filed more than 6,000 individual lawsuits and 11 class actions over the past decade -- helped force the reluctant churches and federal government to the bargaining table. For years, he helped keep the issue in the spotlight, giving interviews to newspapers, the BBC, CNN, even 60 Minutes II. In Merchant's telling, he's a crusader. And he's made one concession, at least, on his fees: his firm has decided, without being asked, he says, to take only 15 per cent of its clients' abuse awards, in addition to Ottawa's matching 15 per cent top-up.

Still, with perhaps $100 million coming his way, it's the other picture, the one painted by his detractors -- other lawyers, native groups, former clients -- that seems destined to grab the headlines. Earlier this summer, even before the government's new allegations, Rosalind Caldwell, who runs an inner-city ministry in Regina, called his share "misery" money, and demanded a portion be returned to disadvantaged Aboriginals. Tony Merchant is an opportunist, critics say, someone who aggressively recruits vulnerable clients, promises them the moon, and leaves them wondering what they are receiving in return for the hefty fees.

The red brick building still dominates the reserve. Three storeys high and unmistakably institutional, it's perched atop a small rise with a view of the Bow River and the rolling Alberta prairie beyond. Converted to a community college in 1971, its classrooms are still in use, but the chapel has been turned into a library. The basement playrooms are now a cafeteria. And the top-floor dormitory, where it must have been possible for students to gaze out the windows and see their family homes in the distance, is now the Siksika Nation Museum.

Between 1929 and the late 1960s, the Anglican Church educated thousands of Blackfoot children at the Old Sun residential school. And for many of those students, the memories are anything but happy. Ruth Majoros, now 65, arrived as a six-year-old, with no English and little understanding of white culture. She says it took her three years to learn to recognize the name the Church gave her. Majoros's eyes fill with tears when she recalls the frequent beatings. "Even when we were 14 or 15 they used to strip us naked and spank us in front of everyone." Once when she bent down to pick up a pencil in class, her male teacher, thinking she was passing notes, pounced and shoved her into a desk. She ended up in hospital with a severe gash to her head and a broken arm. And when she returned to the school a month later, she was greeted with a spanking for being such an inconvenience. Fifteen years ago, Majoros signed up for some courses at the community college, but she didn't last a week. Just being in the building was enough to make her shake and cry.

When lawyers first came to Siksika, about an hour east of Calgary, in the late 1990s for a community meeting about potential compensation, Majoros was among a hundred or so curious participants. For many, that night was the first time they had ever discussed their experiences. It was cathartic, but few seemed to understand what they were getting into. "I signed the guest book, and next thing I knew, I had a lawyer," she says.

In 1999, changes to Alberta's legal limitations period sparked a flood of residential school lawsuits, as native groups and any number of law firms rushed to enter claims before they were deemed to be too old to pursue. The Merchant Law Group stepped up to the plate, paying the $200-a-claim fee and filing thousands of suits before the deadline. (At one point, Merchant recalls, his firm was spending more than $20,000 a day at the courthouse.) In Siksika, Merchant took over some clients from a small, independent law firm, and signed up hundreds more. Soon, he and his firm represented most of the survivors on the reserve.

Hopes for compensation for the years of mistreatment, and the decades of after-effects, were high, but few of the survivors on the reserve seemed to understand how long, complex, and costly the legal battle could be. "The lawyers were telling us how much money they could get for us -- maybe $500,000," says Majoros. "Sorry to say that nobody got anything anywhere near that." A disgruntled former client of Merchant's, she is now a competitor, shepherding groups of fellow survivors through the settlement process, free of charge.

Those who were already Merchant clients were frequently encouraged to provide names of relatives and friends who had also attended residential schools. Craig Weaselhead received a 2004 letter, in care of his uncle, with an attached questionnaire asking about his residential school experiences. ("Were you hit? What was the effect of being hit? Who hit you? What were you hit with?" asks the form, identified as the Merchant Law Group's Residential School Initial Interview. Under the heading of sexual abuse, it asks, "Who touched you? What part of their body touched which part of your body?" and provides a helpful example. "His hand touched my genitals. His penis penetrated my anus. Her hand fondled my genitals, or whatever.") The letter, signed by Matthew Merchant, seems to promise a guaranteed return. "All you need to do is answer the questionnaire and be sure that we know where to find you so that when the case resolves in a year-and-a-half, or two-and-a-half years or three-and-a-half-years we can find you to get to you the compensation to which you are entitled."

Many Siksika clients say that despite the promises, little progress was being made on their cases, and updates from the Merchant Law Group lawyers were few and far between. "For me, out of all those years, I only got two letters from him," says Donna Littlelight, another former Old Sun student. "That man never did anything for us." (Merchant blames the slow progress on the courts and government. "Alberta became a judicial black hole," he says, as his lawsuit flood was diverted into a lengthy case management process. His firm wanted to proceed individually; the Crown and courts wanted to try the cases in bunches.)

Regardless of who bears responsibility, frustration grew in Siksika as claimants died without ever seeing their cases resolved. Majoros learned of an alternative dispute resolution program that the government had set up to quickly settle residential school cases. (She claims that neither Merchant's office, nor the band's legal department, had ever mentioned it to her or other survivors as an option. Merchant, who calls the ADR program "cruel," says that he never recommends it, and depending on the client's circumstances may not even tell them it exists.) Majoros collected the necessary information, filled in the forms, and took a group of 19 friends and relatives through the out-of-court process. Once the compensation cheques started arriving, more and more survivors asked to join. She is now preparing her third group for their hearings, and has close to 200 more former students on a waiting list. Almost all are former Merchant clients. "We don't say that we fired him, because that's not a very nice word," says Majoros.

The confidentiality rules governing the relationship between lawyers and their current and former clients make it impossible for Merchant to respond directly to the complaints, but he questions the motives of his critics, noting that a competing firm now has a satellite office in Siksika. "It's interesting that the only First Nation in Canada where we have a problem is one of the few that has a lawyer right there on the reserve."

But the Merchant Law Group has not let its former clients go without a fight. It papered the reserve with letters advising survivors that someone was "manipulating the people of Siksika to do a very unwise thing." The ADR process is "largely a trick," wrote Tony Merchant. The letters also contained a warning: the firm wouldn't wait for a settlement -- all clients who found new lawyers would be expected to pay their outstanding accounts immediately. Those who persisted received bills for thousands of dollars.

Peter Cayen, now 77, spent 11 years as a student at the reserve's Catholic-run Crowfoot Indian Residential School. Sitting on his front porch, he's comfortable enough talking about the beatings inflicted by staff and other students, but he draws the line at discussing the sexual abuse. "I don't want to say those things in front of other guys." When Cayen fired Merchant in October 2005, he received an invoice for $8,217.72. Interest on any unpaid balance would be 27 per cent, it warned. "I got worried. I got scared of them," he says. The itemized bill, stretching back to 1999, shows an initial one hour and 20 minute consultation with Cayen, and then three letters over a six-year period. Most charges on the seven-page bill are for the mass Alberta case management meetings. An examination for discovery was finally held in June 2005. Last February, months after he dismissed Merchant, Cayen says he got a call from the firm's Calgary offices telling him to come and pick up a cheque. He met with a paralegal and signed an "irrevocable direction" authorizing the government to pay the Merchant Law Group $2,750, settling his case. He was then sent home empty-handed. "Good thing I had enough gas in my car," says Cayen. Months later, he got a cheque for $500, the only payment he has received to date from the firm. Cayen has given up hope of getting more.

Merchant has aggressively pursued his former clients in other jurisdictions as well. In October 2005, he convinced a Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench judge to order the government to pay all future residential school awards due to two survivors -- including their common experience payments -- into the court so that his bills, $4,500 and $7,500, could be satisfied first. The Crown is appealing the case.

In a sworn affidavit filed in court last January, Ron Manyheads, the manager of the Siksika Nation Justice Service, complained that Merchant's collection attempts were "creating an atmosphere of uncertainty as well as creating feelings of intimidation" in the community. He attached several examples of the letters, as well as communications with Tony Merchant. The band questioned how the firm could double dip -- billing former clients and collecting $40 million in legal fees under the settlement agreement. "Merchant Law Group has an arrangement by which our fees for our clients will be paid by the government," was the response. Merchant's letter invoked the Saskatchewan court ruling, and said the band should be advising its people to return to the firm's fold. If not, the consequences were clear: "[W]e are going to get the $40M and we are going to get more money as well."

If there is living proof of the maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity, chances are that his name is Tony Merchant. Over the past 35 years, he has survived, and thrived through a series of headline-making brushes with the police, judges, and law societies, and never lost his taste for battle. In January 1983, Regina police charged Merchant with abduction after he helped his friend and client Colin Thatcher forcibly remove his nine-year-old daughter Stephanie from the home of a family friend. Stephanie's mother, and Thatcher's ex-wife, JoAnn Wilson, had been savagely beaten and shot in the garage of her Regina home the evening before. Thatcher is still serving time for her murder. Merchant, who represented his former political colleague in the acrimonious divorce and custody battle, later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of mischief and was granted an absolute discharge. The Law Society of Saskatchewan reprimanded him for "conduct unbecoming" and fined him $1,000, and $5,000 in costs.

Merrilee Rasmussen, a Regina lawyer, says the first thing she asks when she takes on a family law case is whether she's up against Tony Merchant. "His personal credo is that he doesn't settle anything," she says. "It's fight at all costs." In a recent Ontario court battle to see which law firms would be allowed to participate in a class action against the makers of Vioxx, the judge criticized Merchant for submitting "scandalous" statements, alleging that his competition had sold out their clients in the past. His conduct, including dumping thousands of pages of "largely irrelevant" material on an opposing lawyer just before 5 p.m. the evening before the hearing, left many scratching their heads. "We filed our material six months before the date," says Mike Peerless, a London, Ont., class action specialist. "This type of thing isn't usually a blood sport."

In 1998, a Tax Court judge slammed Merchant for "stonewalling" Revenue Canada auditors who tried to reassess his taxes. When the court ordered him to disclose his financial documents, he dragged his heels, then submitted an avalanche of disorganized papers, including a list of 16,000 items with no description or explanation. When he pressed the case to the Federal Court of Appeal, the three-judge panel criticized his "unacceptable conduct" and disrespect before the court. At particular issue were Merchant's efforts to file a legal memorandum that exceeded the court's 30-page limit. After it was twice rejected, he changed the page margins and filed the same argument in eye-straining, extra-small type.

The Merchant legend has been further burnished by his eccentricities. In his days at the University of Saskatchewan, he was known for not wearing shoes, even in the middle of winter (perhaps explaining the nickname "Tippy Toes"). He owns 35 suits, all of them in a style-defying double-breasted cut, and only wears white shirts with French cuffs. He is also a self-confessed cheapskate, proudly sharing the tale of how his mother purchased his wife's engagement ring. That may also explain why he's currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Saskatchewan's provincial auto insurance body. At issue is a refused claim for $1,450 in repairs to the interior of Pana's 1999 Oldsmobile, for damage caused by his son Matthew's dog, a black Labrador retriever named Bobs (in the fashion of all 19 Labs the family has ever owned, stretching back to 1922).

To some extent, Merchant enjoys the notoriety. "It's part of being larger than life in Saskatchewan," he says. Nor does it seem to bother him that his detractors are so vociferous that it sometimes feels like the meetings of the Tony Merchant fan club could be held in a phone booth. "I have always been strong medicine," he says. "I've always been impatient about doing the things I want to do. I've been unhappy since I was 12 that I was going to die."

Native groups have been complaining since the late 1990s about the way some lawyers have been recruiting the often emotionally vulnerable survivors of residential schools. In his first term as grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine wrote to all of the country's law societies and bar associations, begging them to rein in their more aggressive colleagues. Only the Canadian Bar Association responded, adopting a set of voluntary, non-binding guidelines that say in part that lawyers should not initiate communications with former students, or inquire whether they were sexually assaulted.

Tony Merchant can speak movingly about the stories he has heard from clients over the years. "You'd think you'd get used to it, but on probably a dozen occasions a year, I have to leave my office because my eyes are watering," he says. His outrage shines through, as does his pride in being part of the historic settlement of their claims. "First Nations peoples were perfect victims," says Merchant. "They suffered in silence. It is part of their culture to be strong about bad things . . . It isn't the amount of money that makes people feel better, it's the monetary recognition. When they get that $1,800 and a letter of apology, they are satisfied. It's sort of like they feel that someone has been fined."

In no small way, Merchant sees himself as an evangelist. Survivors should be made aware they have legal options, that they are entitled to compensation for what happened, whether it's a small amount or a big one, he says. That's one of the reasons he has always made himself so available to the media, and especially those outlets with large First Nations audiences. On this day, he breaks off an interview to take a call from CBC North. It is a happy intersection of duty and business, says Merchant. "They get 20-second sound bites and I get to say Merchant Law Group all the time on the only radio station anybody listens to north of Prince Albert." All of the firm's offices have easy-to-remember phone numbers ending in the same digits -- 7777. Type www. residentialschools.ca into an Internet browser and you end up at Merchant's website.

But that zeal to spread the word has caused problems. In 2000, the Law Society of Saskatchewan convened a disciplinary hearing over letters Merchant sent to two survivors in the fall of 1998. "We believe the compensation that we can achieve for you will be significant and you have nothing to lose," said the unsolicited pitches. "For sexual assault, the amount of compensation could be $50,000, $75,000, or $150,000 so a lot is at stake." One of the recipients told the law society panel that she became ill after receiving the letter, suffering nightmares, missing work and ultimately seeking psychological help for her fear that others would learn of the abuse she had suffered. The committee declared the letters "reasonably capable of misleading the intended recipient," severely reprimanding Merchant, and fining him $5,000 as well as $10,000 in costs. He appealed and lost.

Merchant was unapologetic, and blasted the country's law societies for being too timid to support his "cutting edge work." If the regulators had their way, he says, every letter to a client would read like a prospectus. "Lawyers are good at making rules." (In February 2006, the law society again found Merchant guilty of misleading communications, this time for letters he sent to residents of the town of Estevan following a 2004 train derailment. At the same hearing, he was also found guilty of withdrawing or authorizing the withdrawal of trust funds without consent. In June, he was given a two-week suspension from practice and fined more than $60,000. He is appealing the decision.)

The way firms recruit former students is a long-standing problem, says Sharon Thira, executive director of British Columbia's Residential Schools Survivors Society. "We've had situations where lawyers went into communities, set up a table, and started collecting names. Many of the survivors didn't even realize that they were signing retainer agreements," she says. In 2000, her organization complained to the provincial law society about the activities of two Merchant Group lawyers who had held meetings on a number of reserves in southern B.C. "When they left, there were a number of people who went into crisis," says Thira. "Some survivors haven't talked about the residential school experience in 30 or 40 years. It can create a flood of emotions." The firm said its lawyers had been invited by band members, and the complaint was dismissed in May 2001 after the law society determined that no rules had been broken. (The British Columbia bar has yet to adopt any specific guidelines for dealing with residential school clients.)

Merchant's volume business with residential school clients has also raised the hackles of other lawyers. "He's done an amazing thing with this file, getting himself $40 million, for frankly not $40 million of work," says Laura Cabott, a Whitehorse practitioner. Cabott, who represents about 300 former students, says each case requires a tremendous amount of legwork and direct contact. And her role is frequently as much counsellor as counsel, as emotional clients seek support and reassurance. "Merchant says he has 9,000 clients, which makes it impossible to service those people the way you are supposed to," she says. "It's just not the right way to practise law."

There has also been considerable confusion about just how many residential school clients Merchant actually represents. A class action he filed in Alberta in September 2005 had a list of names that stretches 440 pages. But other lawyers have found many of their own clients included in Merchant's tally. Peter Grant, a Vancouver lawyer who represented independent counsel at the residential school bargaining table, says about 10 per cent of his clients were mistakenly listed as Merchant's, and that several other firms have had the same problem. In some cases, payouts have been delayed as the government tries to figure out just who is representing the survivor. "All of a sudden you can't settle because there's a court action somewhere else," he says. The elderly clients often have no recollection of ever signing up with Merchant's firm.

As Merchant himself notes, anyone with as long a career, and as many clients as he has, is bound to have rubbed some people the wrong way. He referred Maclean's to three clients who might provide a more balanced picture. Christine Semple, a survivor of the MacKay Residential School in Dauphin, Man., says she trusts Merchant more than any other lawyer. The process has been a lengthy one, and she is still awaiting compensation, but Semple has never lost faith. Those who complain about his share of the settlement simply don't understand how much work he has done. "People are always trying to dig up dirt on the good people," she says. "He's a god in my eyes." Flora Northwest, who spent a decade at the Ermineskin School on the Hobbema reserve, has referred more than 100 fellow survivors from the Samson Cree Nation to the Merchant Law Group. She blames the slow pace of her case on the government. "Tony's worked on my case for 81/2 years. He deserves the money."

But Jane Glennon, a Saskatchewan resident who attended the Guy Hill Residential School in Manitoba, seemed surprised to be getting a call about the Merchant Law Group. "I haven't been getting any kind of meaningful feedback from them. It's a slow process." Glennon, who was named as a representative plaintiff in one of the firm's class actions, says she has no idea where her file stands. She's currently shopping around for another lawyer. "I really don't understand why he'd have you call me," she says.

In the four months after the federal election, the residential schools settlement went through 27 new drafts. What went on behind closed doors remains something of a mystery, but in early April, Jim Prentice, the Indian affairs minister, blasted an unnamed law firm for "dragging its feet" and holding up the final deal. Tony Merchant says it wasn't him, but several others who were at the table point the finger squarely at the Merchant Law Group.

One of the few significant changes between the agreement in principle and the final deal is the language about Merchant's compensation. Gone were the references to the $40 million. Instead, the settlement says his fees "will be determined" and verified as per a new, separate side agreement called "Schedule V" (Merchant Law Group is the only firm being held to this standard of proof). That one-page agreement doesn't mention Merchant's client files, but it does specify that government-hired auditors were to review his dockets, computer records of work in progress, and "any other evidence" relevant to his claimed legal fees. And it sets his firm's fees at no less than $25 million and no more than $40 million.

In an interview earlier this summer, Frank Iacobucci was tight-lipped about the dispute, but clear on the government's position. "We will not be paying fees unless the fees are satisfactorily presented to us," he said. Before courts in the nine jurisdictions give their final stamps of approval to the deal, the former Supreme Court justice was supposed to sign an affidavit attesting that all the legal fees being charged are "fair and reasonable." But that's a far cry from what he recently submitted to the courts in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Iacobucci cited "uncertainty" about the Merchant Law Group's actual number of clients, a "lack of evidence or rationale" to support claims of $80 million worth of work in progress, and "an apparent discrepancy between the amount of class action work MLG represented it had carried out and the amount of class action work it had actually done." Iacobucci attached a Department of Justice review of a Saskatchewan residential school class action lawsuit filed by Merchant Law Group that discovered 264 of the named plaintiffs had already settled, eight had gone to trial, and 84 names were duplicates. (That exhibit was ruled inadmissable as he had not identified the exact source of the unproven allegations.)

A government affidavit from Edward Nagle, a senior manager with Deloitte & Touche's forensic accounting group, detailed what auditors found before Merchant refused further access to his files this past January. The firm was only able to supply retainer agreements for 4,823 of its then 8,560 purported clients. Nagle states that his team was never allowed "unsupervised" access to the Merchant Group's records, and that its review of work product was restricted to a "cursory" look at four files, handpicked by the firm. All the same, the auditors note several problems with the documentation they did receive. Work-in-progress reports showed "multiple time and disbursement entries" made on Feb. 1, 2004, pertaining to work done over the prior six years, including one charge for 1,200 hours of a single lawyer's time in a "Settlement Conference." (The Merchant Law Group says the charges were due to the conversion from an older billing system.) Nagle also questions why Merchant was charging residential school clients $750 an hour for his work "in contrast to $450 per hour charged by him on an apparently unrelated engagement."

Merchant has responded with a 248-paragraph, 61-page affidavit from his firm's executive director, Donald Outerbridge, refuting the allegations, appending several dozen photocopies of newspaper and magazine articles about his career as proof of his expertise, accomplishments and sterling reputation. Outerbridge goes into great detail about the financial burden the residential school work has put on the firm. Several partners, including Merchant, provided loans to keep the business afloat. The firm was overdrawn on its main line of credit 17 times in 2005, and 19 times in 2004, says the affidavit. Payroll day was always a scramble, and the phones were cut off for non-payment on at least one occasion. And he provides a very different version of what went on during the closed-door negotiations, painting a picture of government duplicity and strong-arm tactics. He suggests that the firm settled for $40 million in the agreement in principle -- less than it claims it's entitled to -- in part because it worried Stephen Harper would win the election and put an end to the deal. Negotiations were fractious and Iacobucci became "anger [sic] and ill-tempered during discussions."

Although it was the Assembly of First Nations that reportedly pushed the issue of legal fees at the table, Phil Fontaine, a former student himself, is treading lightly when it comes to First Nations complaints, and the government's ongoing battle with Merchant. "We have been very, very careful not to interfere with the privileged relationship between lawyers and clients," he says. "We would never advise survivors to fire their lawyers, but we also let them know that they can if they wish." Fontaine allows that he has "heard stories" about "some lawyers," but says that's a problem for the law societies to deal with. The main concern for the AFN these days is what will happen to First Nations communities after the lawyers take their cut and the compensation starts flowing. "There's going to be a lot of money out there and it's going to attract good and bad people," says Fontaine. "We want to inform communities and try to protect the elders."

Others who were at the table say the focus on legal fees is misguided. Kirk Baert, a lawyer with Toronto's Koskie Minsky, part of the national consortium, says the final figure is far less than what the standard class action payout -- three or four times the lawyers' docketed time -- would be. Besides, it was a tough fight. "If it was so easy, why didn't all the other law firms in Canada do it?" asks Baert. "If the people who are on about the size of the legal fees can think of a better system to litigate these cases, I'd like to hear about it."

But as long as Merchant and the feds are squabbling over his $40-million bill, legal fees -- not the historic deal -- will continue to make the headlines. The settlement agreement says the lawyers get paid first, then the victims, notes Merchant: "You can't do anything else." So residential school survivors across the country are now left guessing about when -- or if -- they will get their compensation cheques. "Merchant can definitely slow the deal down, but I think it's unlikely he'll be able to kill it," says one Ontario lawyer involved in the process. "But the really sad part is that five survivors die every day that people hold this up."

What's strange is that, as aggressive as Merchant has been about protecting his firm's residential school turf, there's a sense that on a personal level he may not even care that much about the actual dollars and cents. Compared to many successful lawyers, he lives modestly. A shiny grey Jaguar and a taste for Hermès ties are the only evidence of high living. The recipient of the biggest payday in Canadian legal history says he has no firm plans for the money. Except that he won't be retiring.

What really seems to matter to him is that he gets credit for the win. On a recent Monday morning, there were five rambling voicemails from Merchant waiting on my phone. Each message ran out the tape. "Much has been written favourably about me as a person. Candid, intelligent, loyal, organized, goal-organized and productive, made for television". . . "mixed with the crusader is great determination made effective by financial capacity". . ."I'm a brown belt in karate." There were passing references to topless rights activists, The Rockford Files, and 18th-century liberalism. "I spoke in Arabia on a number of occasions. I was in the navy. I was co-editor of my student newspaper . . . I have a lifetime record of 102 wins and two losses as a debater." In one message, Merchant listed his five Supreme Court appearances in declining order of importance. "There's a theme here of what matters to me as an individual." Each voicemail picked up where the last had left off, often in mid-sentence. One seamless, if extremely odd, 10-minute statement of principles. The clock on the phone showed the messages had been left hours apart, over the course of three days.