Federal government still shortchanging First Nations children a year after tribunal ruling, advocates say

Top First Nations activists said Thursday the government is still shortchanging Indigenous children through discriminatory spending practices on child welfareand healthservices, despite a year-old Canadian Human Rights Tribunal rulingthat demanded the governmentimmediately close gaps in care.

Cindy Blackstock, a child advocate who filed acomplaint with the tribunal more than 10 years ago,told reporters the government isfailing even after two orders from the quasi-judicial body calling on the federal governmentto provide services to First Nations children comparable to those offered byprovincial systems.

I won't go so far as to say these individuals are racist, but the system is racist.- Cindy Blackstock

The government voted in favour of an NDP motion last fall to inject $155 million into child and family services but the money hasn't been spent, Blackstock said.

She saidbureaucrats in Indigenous Affairs have a "colonial" attitude towards First Nations-run child welfare agencies as they routinely question their capacityto appropriately spend money.

"I won't go so far as to say these individuals are racist, but the system is racist," she said. "How much of the colonial philosophy within the department is colouring their perception of First Nations service providers?"

Blackstock said the government is hung up on further "engagement" on how best to reform the system, while more and more children are taken from their communities.

Blackstock says government still discriminating against First nations children

8 years ago

Duration 2:43

Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society says that little has been done to rectify problems outlined by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and the delays are costing children their lives.

Nearly half of all children in foster care some 14,200, according to Statistics Canada are Indigenous, and most of those kids are under the care of aprovincially-runchild welfare system. There are currently more Indigenous children in state care than at the height of the residential school era, or during theSixties Scoop.

The Sixties Scoop refers to an estimated 16,000 Indigenous children who were placed in non-native homes between 1965 and 1984after a series of federal-provincial agreements on child welfare. A judge recently ruledthe federal government failed to prevent on-reserve children in Ontario from losing their Indigenous identity after they were forcibly taken from their homes during this period.

"We are going to be here in another 10 years talking about the 2017 scoop, and the government is going to be apologizing for that and settling it. I want to get ahead of that, I want to keep those kids in their families, givethem the childhood they deserve, and no apologies will be needed in the future," she said.

• Judge sides with Sixties Scoop survivors
• Health Canada having trouble finding First Nations kids to help because of 'broken' system
• Ottawa promised millions in new spending for First Nations health less than 10% made it out the door

She said Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett's appointment of a ministerial special representative (MSR)to study problems with child welfare system is simply an attempt at political damage control. Blackstock said the minister's pick to help reform the system,CynthiaWesley-Esquimaux, is odd because she is not academically trained as a social worker.

Bennett denied her ministry is dragging its heels.

"We are exerting every ounce of political muscle on this," she told reporters before question period. "I think you'll find that in the agencies, they know we're working with them.

"Money needs to go to communities, and money needs to change the system so that less kids are in care. The money is flowing and available," she said.

Budget 2016, which was drafted before the tribunal's ruling,committed some$635 million over five years in new funding for child welfare, but most of that money is back-loaded to 2019, and 2020, a year after the next scheduled election.

Limited definition of Jordan's Principle

In addition to its findings on child welfare, the tribunal also ruled that the federally run First Nations health-care systemis discriminatory. Itorderedthe government to fully implement Jordan's Principle andprovide services to Indigenous kidsat the same level as those provided by the provinces to children living off-reserve.

Blackstock said the government is only implementing a limited definition of Jordan's Principle, despite the tribunal's ruling,as the government applying it only to children with disabilities.

Jordan's Principle is named after Jordan River Anderson,a five-year-old boy with serious andcomplex medical needs who died in hospital in 2005 after a drawn-out court battle between the federal government and Manitoba over who should pay his home-care costs.

Last summer, the government announced $382 millionin funding over three years for servicespreviously denied by Health Canada but covered by the provinces for non-Indigenous children such as mental health supports, home care and help for children living with disabilities, as well as forthings as basic as infant formula, hearing aids and wheelchairs.

But as CBC Newsfirst reportedearlier this month, Health Canada has spent only aquarter of the $127 million budgeted this year to implement Jordan's Principle. The government has only"identified" 3,000 children who require treatment at a cost of $30-40 million.

"We've got a lot more work to do, but we're determined," Health Minister Jane Philpott said Thursday.