31420-12-1 SAWRIDGE, Indian vs. ROLAND, Twinn et al

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1 Court to seek judicial review? There are remedies there to address these things. But the
2 point is that when you talk about functionality, is the process functioning, I mean, unless
3 you’re going to get into specifics of each and every application to determine whether --
4 whether it’s functioning and whether it’s fair, our submission -- and our submission, of
5 course, is that that’s -- the proper venue for that is judicial review, not in this application.
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Our submission is that that’s a real problem.
8 A judicial review has the proper parties before it. It’s in the proper forum. It’s has the
9 proper evidence before it. You can deal individually with any issues. And it’s our
10 submission that it’s not for the Public Trustee to try to identify any issues with pending
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applications at all. It’s for these individuals to address that in a different forum.
13 THE COURT: Well, Ijust want to ask you a question while it
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occurs to me. Can minors apply for membership?
16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
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Technically, yes.
18 MR. PORETTI: I think if you look at the membership code, the
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answer is yes. Ijust wanted to confirm.
21 THE COURT:
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Okay.
23 MR. PORETTI:
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Yes.
25 And just to deal with the 23 minors that were -- I think the 23 minors -- there’s a couple
26 of different issues here I think. There’s the 23 minors that we know are currently
27 beneficiaries. And they will, if the definition is changed, they will lose their status as
28 beneficiaries. And that’s obviously an issue that will have to be dealt with in the main
29 application. Some have suggested grandfathering and so on. We’ll have to deal with
30 that. But that’s before the Court. The Court -- the Court has that information before it,
31 and we can deal with that later. The fact that these minors, you know, they are treated --
32 whether they’re beneficiaries or not, they still get the same benefits as a minor as long as,
33 you know, until they turn 18. The evidence of Mr. Bujold is all minor dependents are
34 treated as beneficiaries. They are eligible for all of these benefits. So, you know, our
35 submission is that these 23 minors, even though they lose their status as beneficiary, their
36 formal status, while they’re minors, it doesn’t impact on them. Now, clearly, like when
37 they turn 18, now they are in a situation where they’re an adult. They can no longer
38 access these benefits. And if they wish to access benefits, they have to be a member. So
39 they would have to apply. And as I’ve just submitted, they can apply currently if they
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wish.