Ottawa offers over $35.5B for First Nations child welfare reform

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is presenting a new plan worth more than $35.5 billion to keep First Nations children connected to their communities, culture and families.

The offer is less than the $47.8 billion presented by former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government but it contains a key difference: a $4.4-billion annual commitment starting in 2033-34 after the initial $35.5 billion is spent.

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty shared the details with CBC News before making the announcement in Ottawa on Monday — the day her government’s plan to reform the on-reserve child welfare system is due to be submitted at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. 

“Every day that we continue to try to define what an agreement looks like or trying to determine through legal measures how you're going to stop discrimination is another day that a child is in care,” Gull-Masty said.

“If we're going to really address that, it has to be in creating a system where a child is in care surrounded by their community, by those that they know, by those that love them, by those that are going to teach them their culture, their identity, their language.”

But the government’s plan isn’t the only one the tribunal is considering.

A group of First Nations chiefs and children’s advocates, known as the National Children’s Chiefs Commission, is filing a competing proposal with a bigger price tag. It estimates the cost to fix First Nations child and family services is closer to $50 billion over 10 years, well above what the government is offering.

The commission was directed by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) to develop a First Nations-led plan after chiefs rejected the $47.8 billion offer from the Trudeau government last year, over concerns the money wasn’t guaranteed and would be subject to annual reviews.

The submissions are being made nearly a decade 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 Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society in 2007.

If the tribunal approves Ottawa’s plan, Gull-Masty said the more than $35.5 billion in funding will be secured in a legal order to ensure it’s protected from future changes in government and will be made available right away. 

She said the government has not taken away the $47.8 billion previously on the table because it has been drawing from those funds to pay for services at a cost of approximately $4.4 billion per year. 

The government is pitching a national reform plan but looking to strike regional agreements with First Nations entities so they can tailor the delivery and funding of services to their distinct realities, Gull-Masty said. 

Under the proposal, she said communities will determine their standard of care.