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Summary
Windspeaker.com Staff
The chiefs in assembly at the Assembly of First Nations special meeting May 2 in Gatineau, Que. spoke bluntly and forcefully in response to a request from Jane Philpott, minister of Indigenous Services Canada.
She had focused her speech to the assembly on the co-creation of child welfare legislation that would lay down, affirm, and protect in federal law, the jurisdiction that First Nations have over Child and Family Services and would ensure in law federal obligations for funding.
She asked to hear clearly from the chiefs their views on co-creating legislation and what that should look like.
Philpott said the Liberal federal government was not going to impose such legislation. It had to be co-created and that required Indigenous support.
The idea of co-created legislation on child welfare came from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #4.
Philpott said First Nations already had jurisdiction, “but laying it down in federal legislation could say loudly to other orders of government that that jurisdiction holds and has to be respected.”
One chief told her that the first thing that must be done is to repeal Section 88 of the Indian Act.
According to an article on the First Nations Caring Society’s website, Section 88, in regard to child welfare, “effectively blocks any kind of federal responsibility over child welfare issues on reserve leaving jurisdiction over this field in the hands of provincial governments.”
The Caring Society and executive director Cindy Blackstock brought the federal government before a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which found the federal government discriminates against First Nations children in care on reserves.
“The Indian Act is the most racist piece of legislation in the world,” said the chief addressing Philpott. “And that one section has allowed provinces to come in and do what they are doing for the last 40 friggin’ years and killing our children.”
Philpott nodded her head as she heard the chief’s comments. In response, the minister said that the message had to be delivered clearly that while the provinces talk about having jurisdiction of child welfare, the only reason they have jurisdiction is because of Section 88.
She believed that within co-created federal legislation there could be options to address that.
In her speech, Philpott said the end goal of co-created legislation was to focus on prevention, not apprehension.
“Children need to be with their families.”
“No more flowing money for how many children you apprehend,” said Philpott
She said it is a “horrible system” that is still in place in many locations across the country.
“The more children are apprehended the more money flows. That has to change.”
Philpott estimates there could be 40,000 Indigenous children currently separated from their families by the system.
“Bring those children home,” she said.
“The status quo as it relates to Indigenous child welfare is outrageous.” However, Philpott said she believes that this can be solved.
Sto:lo Grand Chief Doug Kelly said he appreciated the minister’s comments, which focused on keeping children safe, and keeping them with their families.
“Provincial legislation doesn’t go there,” he said. “Provincial legislation only talks about keeping children safe. They take them and then they don’t keep them safe.
“That’s the cold, hard reality. The province of British Columbia is no different to any other province. It makes a terrible parent.”
Another chief reiterated Philpott’s own statement, that First Nations already had jurisdiction. He said he didn’t need legislation to exercise that jurisdiction.
Philpott responded “Just because you have rights and jurisdiction, unfortunately, sometimes you still have to go to court to prove those rights.” In the case of child welfare, is there a way to make it imminently clear, she wondered, “and give you a piece of paper to wave at the provincial agent who is trying to say that they actually have that jurisdiction.”
Tsuut’ina Councillor Regena Crowchild said “I’m not here to ask for you to hand down jurisdiction. We already have it… I want to ask, are you going to live up to your Constitutional obligations to repair the damage that the governments of Canada have done to our peoples.”
She said Tsuut’ina is in the process of developing their own laws, covering all fields of jurisdiction.
“We’re not asking for your authority or your approval.”
“My question to you is now that we have asserted jurisdiction over child welfare, are you going to provide the necessary funding for us to do the preventative measures and for you to repair the damage that you have done?”
Chief Lynn Acoose of Sakimay First Nation in Saskatchewan told the chiefs that she felt they needed to stop talking about “drawing down jurisdiction.”
“We have our inherent responsibility to our children, and how can we draw down inherent responsibility from the federal government?” She said through the legislative destruction of Indigenous kinship systems, Indigenous children became unsafe.
One delegate said that now jurisdiction had been affirmed at the federal level, he called upon the federal government to work with provincial counterparts to stop making First Nations use their energy to affirm their jurisdiction at the provincial level as well.
“I would rather spend our energy on making sure that that child has the best opportunity.”
He also complained that registration for children born without two parents’ signatures on birth certificates, despite their both having 6.1 status, makes the child a 6.2.
“That child is going to grow up one day and we are going to have a case on our hands in 20 years from a whole generation of little children, who because their parents didn’t sign their birth certificate they potentially can become a non-First Nations person in this country.”
In her speech, Philpott said she had been mocked over her previous statement that the state of child protective services in Canada for Indigenous people is a humanitarian crisis.
She was criticised for what some called “inflammatory language”. But Indigenous people did not consider those words an overstatement of the circumstance facing their families.
“It is a humanitarian crisis,” Philpott reiterated. “It is not a stretch to say this is a crisis.” Indigenous children zero to 14 years of age in care in private homes (excluding group homes) make up 52 per cent of the children in the child welfare system, while making up only 7.7 per cent of the child population of Canada.
Every day a baby or child is taken away from its parents in Canada, she said.
Philpott restated the commitments made by Canada in January at an emergency meeting on child welfare held with Indigenous leaders, Elders, and youth raised within the system, the first being that Canada would implement all of the orders made by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to end the discrimination within the child welfare system.
That included full funding to child welfare agencies going forwards and backwards to 2016. This included the actual cost of preventing children from going into the system.
Mary Teegee of Takla Lake First Nation reminded the assembly that B.C. child welfare agencies on reserve have never received prevention dollars, though a $52-million prevention initiative had been rolled out in the majority of other provinces beginning in 2007.
“B.C. is not there yet,” said former Conservative Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt in 2014 when asked why B.C. was being excluded. He said Canada had “embraced” the Enhanced Prevention approach, but it was a gradual roll out across the country. He added that the taxpayers’ capacity to pay had to be respected.
Teegee said it was now the first time B.C. First Nations were being asked to develop prevention programs in their communities, and that made her optimistic.
She recommended having a task force on child wellbeing, rather than child welfare to focus on seeing the child as a whole.
The main issues that result in children going into care are poverty and neglect. Overcrowding of homes is also a factor putting children and families at risk, she said.
She wanted to see an expansive discussion, which included those in mental health and housing, rather than a silo-styled, limited scope on child welfare only.