"In November, 2003, the Government of Canada launched a Dispute Resolution (DR) plan to compensate survivors of Indian Residential Schools for abuses perpetrated on them while in attendance at the schools. The goal was to fulfill the recommendations of the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples as well as follow through on Canada’s Statement of Reconciliation to survivors made in 1998.

It has become evident that the DR plan is not meeting its goals of just and fair compensation leading to reconciliation. Indeed, there is a real fear that the present system of compensation is causing additional harms to the survivors.

After a national conference in Calgary in March 2004 where the problems with the DR were objectively identified and discussed, the AFN undertook a comprehensive study with the assistance of national and international experts to determine what practical and reasonable changes can be made to the DR plan in order to make it more acceptable and accessible to survivors to achieve the final goal of fair and just compensation with reconciliation" ("Executive Summary," p.1, Assembly of First Nations Report on Canada's Dispute Resolution Plan to Compensate for Abuses in Indian Residential Schools).