The Law Society of Alberta has disbarred a lawyer accused of misconduct in his handling of settlements awarded to survivors of residential school abuse. […]
The panel heard that between 2006 and 2012, Blott’s Calgary law firm handled almost 4,600 residential school claims, many in southern Alberta. Information was taken from each victim who would sign a retainer agreement. If the settlement were $100,000, Blott would receive $15,000 from the federal government and up to an additional $15,000 from the settlement payout.
“The tragic reality … is what started out as a reconciliation effort in the righting of wrongs turned into what can only be described as a factory of gross self-interest, where victims of the residential school system were essentially revictimized and treated less like human beings and more like cattle,” said Harvie.
“They were in fact dehumanized by a process where the ultimate goal appears to be making as much money as possible with the least amount of personal attention.”
h/t Patrick
What do you call a 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start…..
What do lawyers, used car salesmen, and journalists have in common? Answer is sleaze.
If we elected judges in this country, I’m thinking that the real problem would be identified and other parties would be held to account.
Only in Canada could scabby fleabag lawyers get rich marketing the crimeof teaching stone age people english
Steve when I was a younger person, before appointed Judges had an agenda, I felt the election of Judges kept the principles of Law and Order in the political arena. Now much older and a little bit smarter I realize the role of Judges for the politicos is up for control.
I now believe the only practical manner for government to remain under the Sovereignity of the People is to keep the selection of Judges out of the hands of the bureaucracy and in the political arena. Thanks for reminding me. Cheers;
If we start electing judges the candidates will all be lawyers. David Blott is a lawyer.
““They were in fact dehumanized by a process where the ultimate goal appears to be making as much money as possible with the least amount of personal attention.””
That is just lawyers doing what lawyers do …..
I am not sure who is more despicable, The indians with their hands perpetually out for the next hunk o largesse or the LIBERAL lawyers who line them up like turkeys to get their piece of the gobble.
The human misery industry is alive and well and promoted endlessly by the guilty greedy left..
4,600 cases times $30,000 = $ 138 million. For that reward disbarment would be welcome. I don’t suppose they are going to make him pay most of it back. I just saw a lawyer’s fees for probating a very average $300,000 estate – $9,500 fee for a few hours of work. I told the person to complain to the law society but they didn’t want the bother.
Let me guess. Next there will be an inquiry into the lawyer’s practises during this whole process, and another settlement payout demanded to address the victimization caused by the lawyers representing the natives who were receiving settlements as victims of the residential schools.
It is relatively easy to wave goodbye to $9,500 when you have just been given an unearned $300,000. (And if the estate is settled as smaller portions amongst several heirs, they each lose only a smaller portion of that $9,500.)
Residential schools were a somewhat misguided attempt at integration into mainstream society. It failed and natives returned to another failure the reserves. IMHO Canada should have set a date where reserves would be liquidated and title given to individual members. Without title how do individuals move forward on reserves? Instead individual natives remain victims of their own leadership and by bureaucrats.
Reserves have worked out so well in Canada that the concept was extended into the multi-cult industry. By what twisted logic can there be Metis rights separate from the Indian Act or those of ‘ordinary Canadians’? French Canadians have ‘special status’ in this country. Any cultural group that receive taxpayer funding have special status IMO. What is the common denominator? Those that deliver the cash to these groups! It is an industry where the bureaucracy skims their take in the process.
The problem is was and has always been a failure of government to recognize that people will act in their own self interest most of the time. Given stupid government policies and an opportunity to profit they will.
Speaking of stone age people… I’m shocked you can mash words out of your keyboard.
Anyone want to play “Name That Party Affiliation”?
Something vexes your lefty little heart Johnny??
This is the norm. I have ‘very unwealthy’ neighbors. After an accident their renumeration of settlement enriched the lawyer… (for services rendered).
A co-worker lost his toes in a workplace accident… within 100 feet of where I stood. He signed a form allowing the control of his health care to workmans compensation… he conjunctively released the offending company of their legal obligations and his right to sue for redress…
I didn’t understand this and I consider myself well-informed. Upon researching, I found this to be the law of Ontario.
This is not a Native issue… this is an issue of the poor.
Help the poor and you help ALL.
PS… for my friend, when the doctors were available… amputation. That is of course after gangrene had set in.
Gangrene. Think about it.
Hello….CBC…?
I know, Global Warming, Northern Gateway, evil conservatives, blah, blah, blah….
Correct me if I’m wrong (my wife certainly does), but wasn’t there a legalized dirtbag in Saskatchewan who stood to reap upwards of a $billion off the settlement? Then again lawyers being lawyers….
CT “Residential schools were a somewhat misguided attempt at integration into mainstream society.”
I don’t know if integration was the goal as I highly doubt that many people at the time were looking for a recently out of the woods Indian as a next door neighbor.
I think there were 3 goals. One was to teach them English because it’s really hard to work without English, mind you some of the schools were French.. The second was to educate them for the same reason. The third was to put the fear of God in them.
I think the Anglicans had something like 15 residential schools for Indians and 17 for whites so it wasn’t a strictly race thing.
The age of residential schools was at a time when Indians on reserves worked to survive. Most of the work was off the reserves and they tended to move around a lot. Indians used to pick roots and rocks for farmers, they used to hoe sugar beets in Southern Alberta, and they would go on extended hunting and trapping trips. It was impossible for kids to attend on-reserve schools because much of the time they were not home.
“factory of gross self-interest”
AAAha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaa
“the ultimate goal appears to be making as much money as possible with the least amount of personal attention”
AAAha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaa
Describes those wagon burners who slandered the good people who taught at the Res-schools perfectly.
What comes around goes around.
Rick “Correct me if I’m wrong (my wife certainly does), but wasn’t there a legalized dirtbag in Saskatchewan who stood to reap upwards of a $billion off the settlement?”
Somebody named Tony has argued that he should get $100,000,000, so says Macleans.
Is that the same ambulance chaser who the CBC says stashes money offshore?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/senator-s-husband-put-1-7m-in-offshore-tax-havens-1.1329197
Lawyers demand public enquiries on many different things as it provides very lucrative work for their firms and not necessarily have these enquries been productive and provided many answers.
Why don’t we demand a public enquirey into the criminal abuse of fees charged and paid on the residential school settlements to legal firms, and recoup the millions of dollars that have been pilfered from Canadian taxpayers by unscrupulous lawyers?
I guess I am the only person that questions WHY the Government was paying the Indian legal fees, plus the “settlement”
If the Settlement included the Indian Legal fees why would the Government send two checks.
I thought that if a lawyer has a Client that he represents, his ethical responsibility & representation is determined by the person paying him. IE: Father pays for Son
Does the Government Fund all First Nation Lawsuits?, Upfront?
“Does the Government Fund all First Nation Lawsuits?”
Yes. How else are the First Welfare Recipients supposed to get the cash, from beaver pelts?
WCB is the problem in the case you mention,they are an insurance company and their mandate is to get the employer off the hook for any compensation to an injured worker.
If you want to talk “sleaze”,the tactics of WCB make most lawyers and mafia chiefs look honest.
As a supervisor,I was required to take a WCB course in tactics in the event of a workplace accident. My duty was to try my best to get a statement from the injured worker even if he was lying on the ground severely injured.
WCB isn’t a “Native issue” either,it’s a huge government bureaucracy that has become more about sustaining the bureaucracy than performing it’s original mandate.
And in the case of the lawyers versus the Indians, the government (taxpayers) will pay the whole cost of any litigation for the Natives.
They may be “poor”, but they are NOT underprivileged.
I’m shocked!
Shocked I tell you!
Right on the money. They think all people are born noble. Instead of the reality. We have to learn to share, otherwise we will always take the selfish route. Christians call this original sin. For others its called human nature. Homo-stasis for unconstrained need overrides with self interest over all our lives. We learn to be kind or care by pain with bad circumstances to even learn empathy. Just look at the rest of the World that is lawless. Than tell me humans are born naturally benevolent.
Another case of 97% of lawyers giving the rest a bad name.
So what was the problem?
This is the “Indian Industry” after all.
Every do-good feel good scheme by NGO’s and Government does this.
I am sure the Liberals will make this rich disbarred lawyer a senator.ASAP.
Mrt, you beat to that. Allow me another variation of the old joke.
The trouble with Lawyers is that 99% of them give those from Trinity Law School a bad name.
So, in the true spirit of Victimhood (Canada’s defining national character) we can take it as a given that the “victims” will now be eligible for further claims against the Government (us) for somehow permitting this “gouging” to happen. Right?
As tj230 says over on the Canadian Landowner Blog: Build a cabin, stock up on ammo.
Every Indian should get 2 canoes in his teepee, and then send him to work over in Iraq. I’ma gitin sick of my tax dollars always been thrown at some wanna be a victum.
The whole Indian Industry was devised by lawyers as a way to make lawyers richer at the taxpayer’s expense. It certainly doesn’t want to ‘solve’ the aboriginal problem; milking and shearing the victims is much more lucrative, and it’s a sustainable resource. Keep people dependent and they’ll always be victims seeking compensation for their lost entitlements.
Lawyers are loyal to the Bar. Any lawyer seeking political office should resign from the Bar.
Aye. Indeed.
‘I just saw a lawyer’s fees for probating a very average $300,000 estate – $9,500 fee for a few hours of work’
A lawyer’s fee is determined from a schedule of tariffs and a 3% charge on the value of an estate is standard practice. What many people do now is dispose of their property before their death to keep the value of the estate low with the added benefit of making friends AND enemies before your death.
It is true that a rogue priest could cause a lot of damage, especially if shipped from one mission to another. That said, I am convinced that all these Natives would now be dead were it not for these schools. Also, there seems to be a lot of experts out there who never attended religious schools or dealt with priests and conventual Sisters. I did, and neither I or any of those who attended with me, were ever abused, physically or otherwise. Should we be surprised that lawyers would use and abuse these same Natives?