Ottawa, First Nations prepare competing child welfare reform plans

Ottawa is staring down a court-ordered deadline to submit a new plan to reform the on-reserve child welfare system, as a group of First Nations leaders and children’s advocates prepare a competing proposal.

The federal government has until Dec. 22 to make its submission to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal after the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) rejected the previous Liberal government’s $47.8-billion long-term reform offer last year. 

"Our approach to child welfare will be First Nations-led and community-led, and it will be supported by significant, significant additional funding," Prime Minister Mark Carney said during a speech at the AFN special chiefs assembly last Tuesday in Ottawa. 

The government’s plan will be compared against one from a First Nations-led group, known as the National Children’s Chiefs Commission.

The First Nations leaders and children’s advocates who make up that group say they don’t trust Ottawa to end discrimination in the on-reserve child welfare system. They want the tribunal to use the commission's plan to ensure the reforms are done for their children on their terms.

"It is my hope and my dream and I think the dream of all of our children that they would choose the model that is the best model that incorporates cultural integrity, humility," said Pauline Frost, chair of the commission and chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in the Yukon.

"It will be a model that is designed by the Indigenous people for the Indigenous people."

The dual plans are being crafted nearly 10 years after the tribunal issued a landmark ruling that found Ottawa racially discriminated against First Nations children by underfunding First Nations Child and Family Services, and ordered an end to the discrimination. 

The proposals also come almost 20 years following a joint human rights complaint made by the AFN and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society in 2007.

The caring society’s executive director, Cindy Blackstock, said the commission is looking to secure long-term funding close to $50 billion.

Blackstock said the money cannot be subject to annual reviews and must be guaranteed for more than 10 years — one of the key components missing from the package presented by former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

"It's not just the amount of money, it's the security of the money," Blackstock said. "It's how the money gets spent so that it has maximum input outcomes."

The commission was directed to do the work by the AFN's chiefs-in-assembly. It’s compiling perspectives from each AFN region to prepare its framework separately from Ottawa. 

"It's all been, we're going to ignore you, we're going to litigate against you," Blackstock said about the government’s approach.