Open Letter to Minister Carolyn Bennett
Canada’s Inaction on Late Specific Claims Assessments

May 2, 2019

Dear Minister Bennett,

We write today to present a follow-up report prepared by the BC Specific Claims Working Group (BCSCWG) on your government’s inaction on late specific claims assessments. In November 2018, the BCSCWG brought to your attention your department’s failure to meet its legislated timelines to assess specific claims and communicate effectively with Indigenous Nations. We urged you to take immediate, transparent action on the report’s recommendations and you have not done so. We reiterate our call to address the backlog of claims by implementing the recommendations put forward by the BCSCWG in both reports.

January 5, 2017

Dear Minister Bennett,

We are a long-standing national group of specific claims research directors working on behalf of Indigenous Nations and committed to the just, fair, and timely resolution of specific claims in Canada. Here we present a response to the November 2016 report by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), First Nations Specific Claims—Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). This response, called Taking Action, Building Trust, translates recommendations from the audit process into concrete, tangible actions that Canada can undertake within the next six months.

Dear Ministers Bennett and Wilson-Raybould,

We write to urge you to immediately withdraw Canada’s application for judicial review of the Specific Claims Tribunal’s (“Tribunal”) decision in the Akisq'nuk First Nation’s specific claim and to honour the Tribunal’s decision as final and binding.