Feds urge human rights tribunal to dismiss concerns over Jordan's Principle backlog

The federal government is urging the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to dismiss a leading First Nations child advocate's concerns about a large backlog of unprocessed Jordan's Principle requests.

In Ottawa this week, a federal lawyer tried to refute allegations that Canada is mismanaging the program that ensures First Nations kids have timely access to essential health products and services.

"This is not a government that is ignoring its obligation under these orders," said Justice Canada lawyer Dayna Anderson.

"Canada has taken extraordinary steps at extraordinary costs to ensure that it's meeting its obligations to First Nations children."

The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society disagrees. The society sparked the hearing through a non-compliance motion alleging Canada's repeated failure to process these applications in a timely way puts kids at risk.

"We know from Canada's own estimates that there's 40,000 requests at a minimum [and] up to 80,000 requests that they haven't even opened or determined," said Cindy Blackstock, the society's executive director, in an interview. 

"We are hearing from some of those people who are calling out in desperation to us. We've seen children die waiting for those kinds of determinations and experiencing other serious harms."

The motion is the latest legal skirmish in a 17-year-old human rights complaint about the chronic underfunding of First Nations child and family services, a complaint the tribunal upheld in 2016 ruling.

Blackstock's latest motion alleges Canada is violating past tribunal orders requiring Ottawa correct the underfunding and properly implement Jordan's Principle.

The aim of Jordan's Principle is to reduce delays, helping First Nations kids to access health care, social and educational supports when they need them, with questions about which jurisdiction pays for them to be worked out afterward.

Canada got its chance to refute Blackstock's claim on Tuesday, with Anderson saying the Caring Society's "concerns about backlogs are absolutely valid, but they are not public administration experts," while the society's preferred approach is untested.

"In our view, it's time now to allow Canada to manage its own operations, to allow us to engage with First Nations, and to not have the Caring Society's overly complex approach, frankly in some cases, imposed upon us."

Canada filed a counter-motion arguing the backlog problems and delays can be solved by extending, and in some cases removing, mandatory timelines to respond to Jordan's Principle requests.

Canada ushered in an enormous expansion of the program over eight years, going from spending little cash on very few approvals to billions of dollars and millions of products going out the door quickly, Anderson argued.