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The list is disconcertingly clinical, a catalogue of suffering.

“One or more incidents of fondling or kissing.” Five to 10 points.

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For physical assaults, including “severe beating, whipping and second-degree burning” — 11 to 25 points.

And at the top of the list: “Repeated, persistent incidents of anal or vaginal intercourse ” — 45 to 60 points.

Through tens of thousands of private hearings, this is how Canada has assigned dollar figures for the abuse of former students at residential schools. The assessments are part of the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history, indeed, one of largest in the world.

Photo by Library and Archives Canada

But if justice takes time, a decade and 38,000 claimants later, the assessment process for the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement has yet to wrap up, and may take until 2023. That’s left some claimants in painful, years-long limbo. And the cost, originally estimated at $960 million, is so far more than triple that amount, with an added $700 million in administration fees alone – including payments to lawyers who have been allowed to charge both the government and the victims they represent.