The NIICHRO Compensation Office Report
June 30, 2000 - June 30, 2001

 

The CHR Trust Settlement Agreement between NIICHRO and Her Majesty represented by Treasury Board and Health Canada was signed on June 30, 2000. In the past year, the Trustees have been appointed, NIICHRO has put the CHR Compensation Office in place, and the Registration and Information Booklet was prepared and distributed. The Compensation Office is working on bringing to completion over 1100 applications for compensation.

ROLE OF TRUSTEES
The CHR Settlement Trustees are Margaret Horn, Kathleen Mahoney, Norma Diamond, Rachel Ermineskin and Joe Marino, representative of the Royal Trust Corporation. The Trustees are to administer the fund in trust, employ the resources necessary to identify eligible CHRs, make distributions from the settlement only when supporting documents have been collected, collated and verified, have a distribution model formulated and on the first distribution to a Beneficiary, have the release forms in favour of Her Majesty and in favour of the Trustees and Settlors signed. They will have the discretion to determine if distribution is from income of the Trust Fund or from the capital as long as each CHR is treated in an equitable manner. The Trustees are to act in the best interest of the Beneficiaries.

COMPENSATION OFFICE
The NIICHRO Compensation Office, situated in Kahnawake, employs three (3) Claims Agents to communicate directly with the CHRs on behalf of the Trustees. The Claims Agents call the CHRs of their region of responsibility when information is needed. An Office Clerk takes care of recording all incoming mail and ensures that CHR salary information and other supporting documents are electronically scanned. The person responsible for organizing Trustee meetings and communications such as the NIICHRO Compensation Newsletter is the Administration Officer.

THE APPLICATION
To make a request for compensation, a CHR must send a completed and signed registration form plus the three (3) signed consent forms. These forms are in the Community Health Representatives Trust Settlement Information & Registration Booklet.

Registration Form
The registration & information booklet was prepared and mailed out in October 2000 to help CHRs apply for compensation. Many CHRs did not send salary information with the registration form and the three (3) consent forms. It is believed that the Compensation Office could quickly get salary information using the consent forms. If the CHR does not provide salary information, it takes time for the Claims Agent to build the income history. CHRs are asked to submit any and all types of wage information.

The first registration forms were received in the fall of 2000. Since then, the Claims Agents have been working on building the wage history of CHRs. As of June 2001, over 1100 applications for the Community Health Representative wage compensation have been received. Salary information is needed to know how much a CHR earned per hour. This will decide the level of compensation. The File Status Report of June 2001 indicates the following:

 Salary Information  Number of CHR Files
 All  378
 Most  259
 Some  237
 None  208


There are 16 files considered not eligible because according to the information provided it was determined that the applicant did not work for an Indian, Innu or Inuit entity, were federally or provincially employed or were employed prior to September 1980 or after June 30, 2000. There are 23 files considered potential; the booklet has been sent to them and the Compensation Office is expecting their application.

Consent Forms
In the application, the three (3) consent forms must be signed to allow NIICHRO to get the CHR's salary information from the government: Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), Health Canada and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA). Information supporting the CHR's request for compensation is being received in a reasonable amount of time from Health Canada and Human Resources Development Canada. That is not the case for the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. CCRA only began searching for T4 and T4E information in April 2001. It is for this reason that it has taken longer than expected to get income information. CHRs that give all their salary information will still have their consent forms sent to the government. This is to confirm the CHR's income information is correct before making the June 2002 payment.

 

CALCULATING PAYMENTS
Estimated Compensation and the Good Faith Payment
The first step in the salary calculations of every application is to find out the exact employment start and end dates in the position as a CHR. The registration form, band letters and T4s are reviewed to determine the number of hours worked and the actual earnings for every year employed as a CHR. The rate per hour is entered into the computer to be used by the actuary who will compare it to what a CHR would have made at the General Services (GS) rate. The underpayment for every month accumulated is indexed at the interest rates on Canada Savings Bonds from the month of the underpayment to the date of the Settlement, June 30, 2000. The indexed underpayment is what forms the basis of the distribution of the Settlement amount between eligible CHRs.

THE TRUST FUND ACCOUNT
The Trust fund account is made up of capital and interest. The capital is the settlement money of $40.8 million dollars. The interest is the money earned through investments and interest.

Trust Interest
The interest earned by the Trust fund is to be used to make the Good Faith payments.
- 208 CHRs were approved for a payment out of the June 30 - December, 31 2000 interest of $1.1 million
- To be considered for the July 2001 Good Faith payment, the deadline for sending salary information was June 1, 2001. Interest of about $1.1 million was earned from January 1 - June 30, 2001. The Trustees will be making approvals in July 2001.
- CHRs that are approved to receive a July payment will be contacted and sent a letter with the two release forms by mid-July 2001.
- The last Good Faith payment from interest will be in January 2002.
Only files with salary information can be considered for compensation payments. In the case where a CHR worked for the last ten years but only submits salary information for 1999, only the year 1999 can be considered when calculating the estimated compensation and Good Faith payment.

Trust Capital
The CHR Compensation Office expects to have most of the CHR applications complete by June 2002. A completed file means that all the salary information is available and correct, entered into the computer and confirmed through government and band sources. The June 2002 payments will be 40% - 60% of the Trust settlement capital while the June 2003 will be the payment of a CHR's balance of their share of the settlement.

PROMOTION
To inform CHRs of the Trust Settlement, aboriginal radio ads, aboriginal newspaper ads and a poster were used. To keep CHRs informed of the settlement's progress, a quarterly newsletter is sent out.


- 3,500 copies of the CHR Trust Settlement Information and Registration Booklet have been distributed to present and former CHRs, Band and Tribal Councils, Health Centres and Services.
- CHR Trust Settlement ad in 24 aboriginal newspapers across the country.
- 24 Public Service Announcements were distributed across the country.
- Phone campaign in January 2001 where 500 CHRs were called asking them to send in T4s, band letters and/or contribution agreements to help the compensation office build the CHR's employment history.
- A poster encouraging CHRs to "Apply now!" was distributed to Band and Tribal Councils, Health Centres and Services.
- Quarterly newsletters with a mailing of about 3,000 copies. In the coming year, the newsletter mailing list will be revised and distributed only to CHRs that have submitted an application and are considered eligible for the compensation.
- Articles providing compensation updates are submitted to the NIICHRO quarterly publication,
In Touch.


Promotion will be ongoing as long as the Trust exists. The goal is to reach all CHRs that were employed by Indian, Innu and Inuit entities between September 9, 1980 and June 30, 2000.

SETTLEMENT ON THE INTERNET
As of June 1, 2001, the CHR Trust Settlement is available on the NIICHRO website: http://www.niichro.com. The Settlement is only available to claimants. CHRs can contact Kim Norton to confirm they are registered with the Compensation Office and to get their password.