First Nations sue Canada over child-welfare system's destruction of culture, language

Ten Prairie-based First Nations are suing the Canadian government over the loss of language, culture and tradition inflicted on communities by the modern First Nations child-welfare system.

Chief David Crate of Fisher River Cree Nation north of Winnipeg is the lead plaintiff in the proposed class-action lawsuit filed Jan. 31 in Federal Court, the latest in a series of battles over the chronic underfunding of child and family services on reserves and in the Yukon.

Crate and nine other chiefs are seeking collective compensation for alleged community-level harms exacted by the "mass scooping" of First Nations kids into state custody for more than three decades.

"Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand the damage done, not only to the individuals but also to my community," said Harold (Sonny) Cochrane, who is from Fisher River and a lawyer on the case with Indigenous law firm Cochrane Saxberg in Winnipeg.

"The intergenerational trauma, the addiction rates, the poverty, all of those unfortunate results flow from the child-welfare practices and programs of the federal government."

The claim, which does not provide a dollar amount sought, is untested and must be certified by a judge before it can proceed. 

It proposes to include any First Nation that chooses to join and would cover the period between 1991, when the First Nations child and family services (FNCFS) program was created, and now.

A spokesperson for Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu declined to comment on the case directly.

"However I would point you to the work currently underway with a $20-billion agreement in principle related to long-term reform of Indigenous child and family services," said Andrew MacKendrick, Hajdu's communications director, in an email. 

"This is part of our government's commitment to ensuring past harms can never be repeated again."

Canada made the long-term reform pledge amid an ongoing 16-year-old Canadian Human Rights Tribunal complaint and the 2019 Moushoom class action. Both cases deal with child welfare and seek compensation for individual survivors.

In 2016, the human rights tribunal found that federal underfunding of the FNCFS program constituted systemic racial discrimination. In 2019, the tribunal awarded victims and their families $40,000 each.

Last year, in a bid to settle both the complaint and the class action, the federal government pledged $20 billion for individual compensation and another $20 billion for reform.

The umbrella package would flow via two separate deals, but neither have been finalized or approved by the tribunal or the court.