Supporting First Nations Claims in Canada

Client: The Specific Claims Tribunal (SCT) is part of the federal government’s Justice at Last policy and the product of a historic joint initiative with the Assembly of First Nations aimed at accelerating the resolution of specific claims in order to provide justice for First Nations claimants.

Project summary: The Tribunal web site was hosted in a static, HTML based environment which made the site difficult to manage and update. Moreover, the design of the site was the standard Government of Canada template which the Tribunal determined was problematic because it compromised their perceived impartiality by looking like it was part of the Government and not an independent body.

Ngage’s Impact: The SCT therefore decided to create a new site, with a more representative design. The technology chosen was Drupal 9, which has been subsequently upgraded to Drupal 10. The Ngage team investigated the needs of users and developed an IA and design that best reflected each group. It then developed the site and connected to the Tribunal’s decisions application - Decisia via an API. The site was thoroughly tested to ensure that all web standards were complied with including web accessibility, web usability and web interoperability, web security and privacy protection.

Result: After the project’s completion, the SCT was able to boast a bilingual, WCAG compliant and mobile responsive website based on the Drupal 8 platform. The site was launched on time and within budget. The SCT team reported that users were delighted that they could now find all legal records and other key documents easily on the site.