Tribunal rules Canada discriminated against aboriginal kids

Even though the federal government spent the past nine years and more than $5 million fighting Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society over discriminatory funding of child welfare services on reserves, the affirmative ruling Tuesday by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was no surprise.

The decision has been a long time coming, Sara Mainville told CBC News.

“The federal government’s got to figure out a way to give those kids the same kind of services that other kids are entitled to, based on their need”, he said. Coupled with the cost of providing equitable services, the price tag could in the hundreds of millions and provoke some criticism in an era of national economic woes, but money saved by discriminating against helpless children is no saving at all. And a warped incentive structure has encouraged First Nations to take more children into care, rather than having their needs met at home.

“This is a significant injustice that aboriginal children are not provided the same amount of funding through the federal government that children would be in other parts of the province”, said Ganley, who has spoken with Alberta First Nations communities about inadequate support to keep children and families healthy.

“Let’s discuss this… let’s make some transformative change, and let’s go to work”.

“This is a good day”, she said. The principle, which was unanimously adopted in a 2007 motion in Parliament, aims to ensure that First Nations children have the same access to government services as other children.

“This perpetuation of child removal, it’s never going to end if Canadians don’t recognize that it’s really about investing in the human resources within communities”, said Allyson Stevenson, a University of Saskatchewan indigenous studies lecturer.

“Today’s ruling, coming on the heels of the recent recommendations released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, represents a very important step towards healing the atrocities of the past and educating Canadians about the challenges faced by Aboriginal children, challenges perpetuated by a broken system that we can and must fix”, Morley said in a statement.

Mulcair called on the prime minister to commit “necessary funding in the budget so that we can begin to reverse this history of discrimination, colonialism and racism in Canadian institutions”.

“Yet “(Indigenous Affairs) insists that (First Nation child welfare agencies) somehow abide by those standards and provide reasonably comparable child and family services”, said the ruling.

“They fired the child welfare workers at the height of a suicide epidemic in James Bay – 89 kids, and they fired the child welfare workers to save both the province and the feds money”.

“We’ll continue to advocate and lobby for our First Nations and Metis people to finally get what’s rightfully owed to our people”, he said.

At the same time, Bennett and Justice Minister Jody-Wilson Raybould said that it’s hard to predict how much funding will be needed to address the various problems related to health and child welfare. It was meant to prevent First Nations children from being denied essential services or experiencing delays.

Currently, Mi’kmaw Family and Children’s Services isn’t able to provide more preventative programs due to the lack of funding issue, Johnson said. The tribunal said internal reports and provided the department with ways to “address the adverse impacts” of its child welfare program, but were mostly ignored.