Feds under fire over Bill C-31

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Doris Ronnenberg has been waiting for two years to gain status under Bill C-31 because her application is a "problem case," and the federal government is coming under attack by Native groups over the method of processing applications similar to Ronnenbergs.

"What seems to be happening is if there's a problem with a particular case (application) then it seems to be put to the side and they seem to concentrate on the easier ones," says the president of the Alberta arm of the Native Council of Canada.

Ronnenberg's application has been hampered by a lack of documentation concerning her mother's birth.

A former employee who recently quit her job with the Membership and Entitlement directorate, the federal unit responsible for registering people under Bill C-31, agrees with Ronnenberg.

Vivian Cuthand says a new system of processing applications has given priority to "straight forward applications" and other more complicated ones which require research are being "put on the shelf."

In the past applications were dealt with on a first-come basis but this is no longer the case under the new system and it's become "a free for all," says Cuthand.

In a telephone interview from Ottawa she said her reason for quitting her job as membership officer were based on personal "ethics."

"What do I tell an applicant if they sent an application in 1985 and they're still on the shelf . . . I would be defending the department by working under the new system."

Others have echoed her concern saying the difficult applications would not be processed and would wait until all the easy ones are done which could be anywhere from six months to two years.

But the director general of membership in Ottawa Gregor MacIntosh says that's not true and the problem of processing the more complicated applications stems from the fact that it is sometimes necessary to trace genealogical records back to the turn of the century.

He also says, "The biggest problem we have is writing back to applicants for marriage and birth certificates, that's what holds a lot of the work (up). Since the Bill was enacted in 1985 the department has received 54,000 applicants for re-instatement which represents 98,000 applicants. There are over 20,000 applications still to be processed.

"People have to understand this is a horrendous task and it's complicated . . . I guess it's frustrating for people who want to be registered immediately but there's only so much you can do," he says.

The Native Council of Canada has written to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Issues calling for the establishment of a sub-committee with members of the three national Native groups to look at the process of applications and the operations of the membership directorate.

NCC special advisor Bob Groves says the process of putting the more difficult applications to the side has caused the existing backlog "to get worse and worse."

Both he and MacIntosh agree that the backlog resulted because the government underestimated the number of people who would apply for re-instatement.

"When the bill was put through we felt the estimate was about 50,000 people (who would apply) and basically we were out by one hundred per cent," explained MacIntosh.