First Nations Indigenous child and family services coming in early 2019

OTTAWA, Nov. 30, 2018 /CNW/ - Today, Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott, together with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed, and Métis National Council President Clément Chartier, announced that the Government of Canada will introduce co-developed federal legislation on Indigenous child and family services in early 2019.

Indigenous children represent 52.2% of children in foster care in private homes in Canada. The over-representation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation children in the child welfare system is a humanitarian crisis.
Indigenous children who have been in care face greater risks of adverse health outcomes, violence and incarceration.

This broad-based legislation will be inclusive of all Indigenous peoples while respecting a distinctions-based approach. The legislation would affirm inherent Aboriginal and Treaty rights as well as affirm principles consistent with the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

READ: Government of Canada, with First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation leaders, announce co-developed legislation will be introduced on Indigenous child and family services in early 2019 | Benzinga

Quick Facts

• Indigenous children represent 52.2% of children in foster care in private homes in Canada but account for only 7.7% of the overall child population.
• The first five Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission relate to child welfare.
• Call to Action #4 calls "upon the federal government to enact Aboriginal child-welfare legislation that establishes national standards for Aboriginal child apprehension and custody cases and includes principles that:
1. Affirm the right of Aboriginal governments to establish and maintain their own child-welfare agencies.
2. Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take the residential school legacy into account in their decision making.
3. Establish, as an important priority, a requirement that placements of Aboriginal children into temporary and permanent care be culturally appropriate."
• In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that Canada's First Nations Child and Family Services Program was discriminatory and ordered Canada to immediately address the issue. The ruling prompted further discussion on the creation of federal legislation as a way to ensure better care for Indigenous children.
• New federal legislation was also called for in an Interim Report by the National Advisory Committee on First Nations Child and Family Services, and in a resolution passed in May of 2018 by the Assembly of First Nations in support of the establishment of federal-enabling legislation for First Nations.
• In January 2018, the federal government held a National Emergency Meeting on First Nation, Inuit, and Métis child and family services with representatives of the Indigenous peoples and nations, the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council, Indigenous service organizations, experts and practitioners, elders, grandmothers and youth with lived experience. At this meeting, the Government of Canada announced its commitment to Six Points of Action that included the potential for federal legislation, as called for in TRC Call to Action #4.

"For the larger part of Canada's history, Indigenous children have suffered as a result of racist and misogynistic colonial policies. As legislators, we have an obligation to do better for Indigenous children. We must support the development of policies that do not force an ultimatum between the well-being of children and their Indigenous identities."
Senator Marilou McPhedran, Senate of CanadaManitoba