The Tribunal’s May 23, 2025, letter pausing proceedings for the Ontario Final Agreement

Press Release

The Tribunal has reviewed the parties’ submissions on the issue of whether the partial joint COO – NAN motion schedule released by this Tribunal on April 8, 2025, should remain or be modified.

As it was previously mentioned The COO and the NAN’s Amended Joint Notice of Motion dated
May 7, 2025, included the following paragraph:

5. If COO’s and NAN’s status as interested parties restricts them from filing this motion to partially settle the Complaint as it relates to Ontario as described in paragraph 2, COO and NAN request that the Tribunal make an order granting COO and NAN additional participation rights for the purposes of bringing this motion or whatever relief the Tribunal deems just pursuant to its responsibility under s.48.9(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act to ensure proceedings are conducted as informally and expeditiously as the requirements of natural justice and the rules of procedure allow.

The Tribunal advised the parties that it viewed this issue as central, and that the Tribunal wished to address it as expeditiously as possible before ruling on all the interested party status requests to participate in this motion.

The Tribunal directed the parties to provide detailed submissions on this issue and the round of submissions is set to be completed on June 18, 2025.

The Tribunal has discretion to determine the process to be followed to deal with the issues before it. The Tribunal does not want to unduly delay the matters; however, for several reasons that will be further explained at a later date, the Tribunal finds it appropriate to answer the important question found at paragraph 5, on a preliminary basis before pursuing with the partial joint motion schedule and determining the related interested parties’ motions1.

Given the upcoming filing deadline of May 30, 2025, in the joint COO-NAN motion, the Tribunal is advising the parties at the earliest occasion and will provide more fulsome reasons in an upcoming ruling.

The Tribunal directs that the OFA partial schedule is now paused until the Tribunal has decided the preliminary questions referred to above in paragraph 5.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Registry Office by e-mail at registry.office@chrt-tcdp.gc.ca by telephone at (613) 878-8802 or by fax at 613-995-3484.

Yours truly,

Michelle Hannah for Judy Dubois

Registry Officer

1 Canada (Canadian Human Rights Commission) v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 FC 445 (CanLII), [2013] 4 FCR 545, at paras. 144 –147.

DISTRIBUTION LIST

David Taylor, Sarah Clarke and Kiana Saint-Macary

Counsel for the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada

Peter N. Mantas, Gabrielle Cyr and Tina Sun

Counsel for the Assembly of First Nations

Anshumala Juyal and Khizer Pervez

Counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission

Paul Vickery, Sarah-Dawn Norris, Meg Jones, Dayna Anderson, Kevin Staska Sarah Bird, Jon Kahn,, Alicia Dueck -Read, Aman Owais Counsel for the Attorney General of Canada

Maggie Wente, Jessie Stirling-Voss, Ashley Ash and Katelyn Johnstone Counsel for Chiefs of Ontario

Julian Falconer, Asha James, Shelby Percival and Meaghan Daniel Counsel for Nishnawbe Aski Nation

Justin Safayeni and Stephen Aylward

Counsel for Amnesty International

ILR4