Cindy Blackstock asks Human Rights Tribunal to reject $20B child welfare compensation deal

An Indigenous children's rights advocate — whose 15-year battle with Ottawa led to a historic $40 billion settlement agreement over discrimination in the First Nations foster care system — is asking the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to send the compensation deal back to the drawing board.

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, said the agreement negotiated between the federal government and the Assembly of First Nations fails to meet the reparation standard laid out by the tribunal ruling upon which the deal is based.

"It denies or provides a lesser value of compensation to some victims who have experienced the worst-case scenario of discrimination and creates significant uncertainty for other victims," Blackstock wrote in an affidavit filed to the tribunal on Aug. 30.

The settlement sets aside $20 billion for reparations and $20 billion for long-term reform.

The tribunal is holding two days of virtual hearings on Thursday and Friday to decide whether the $20 billion package satisfies its order for Canada to compensate First Nations children and their families for discrimination before the matter heads to the Federal Court for final approval.

Blackstock told CBC News the Caring Society, which was not part of the AFN and Ottawa's compensation negotiations, acknowledges $20 billion is a lot of money.

But since the sum is fixed, it's not assured that every complainant will receive a minimum of $40,000, as ordered by the tribunal.

This, Blackstock said, undermines the human rights order.

"My concern is that the prime minister said no one who is entitled to [$40,000] would get less and that's not the case," she told CBC News.

"It makes me feel disappointed."

In a joint statement, the offices of Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said every First Nations child who was forcibly removed from their homes and put into the on-reserve child welfare system will get a minimum of $40,000 — or more, depending on the severity of harms they experienced. 

But the details of the agreement are still being worked out, the statement said. 

"While no amount of compensation can make up for the grief and trauma that the actions of the Government of Canada caused to First Nations children and families, this final settlement agreement is an important step forward to acknowledging the harm done and an important step forward in healing," the statement said.

The settlement leaves out the estate of Jordan River Anderson's mother, Virginia Ballantyne, whose son died in 2005 at the age of five during a bureaucratic battle between Manitoba and Ottawa over who should pay for his care.