The legal bill will not be paid out from the $23 billion in federal cash set aside for compensation. It also won't come from the other $20 billion earmarked by Ottawa for long-term reform of First Nations child and family services. Class action lawyers will be paid through additional public funds.

Their bill is $80 million dollars for a case taken on by multiple firms for over 10 years. It’s 0.19% of the total settlement amount, and doesn’t come out of the settlement money. Sounds fair to me.

The Federal government has an obligation to negotiate or otherwise try to reduce this bill. It's public funds, and. I dont think they should just take the lawyers word for it in what they are able to bill.

A few people are pretty cranky over the size of the bill. Here's my take.

The bill is $80 million for 10 years of work. We have lotteries that pay out that much a few times a year in a single drawing.

I don't know how many full-time equivalent staff-hours went into into it, but if someone wants to put together a law firm whose only job is to take the federal government to task over things like this, I'm happy to chip in $10/year. I'm sure we can find a million other people to do likewise.

All things considered, it sounds like a bargain. Considering the size of the judgement, I bet the plaintiffs wouldn't even blink had they been stuck with the bill. This just sounds like someone is a sore loser.