What is the impact of Class Counsel’s approach to justifying the proposed settlement agreement?

Second, in attempting to justify the proposed settlement, Class Counsel equated the proposed settlement agreement with approved settlements in other institutional abuse cases. Indeed, Class Counsel extolled and took pride in the fact that the proposed settlement in the immediate case was a clone of the settlement in Seed v. Ontario, another institutional abuse case. However, this approach was seriously misguided, and it had the opposite of the effect that was intended. This approach exposed the weaknesses and inadequacies of the proposed settlement.

Third, in attempting to justify the proposed settlement, Class Counsel extolled the virtues of the Plan of Distribution, which was adopted from the Seed v. Ontario case. My own analysis, however, is that there was little to extoll in this Plan of Distribution. The heads of compensatory damage were limited, the compensation was capped, the compensation was not generous, there was a prospect of a reversion to Ontario, and the Plan of distribution envisioned that 90% of the Student Class and 100% of the Family Class would get no compensation, no apology, nor anything at all even indirectly for releasing their claims against Ontario.