‘This rejection sends a clear message: we will not accept half measures or temporary solutions,’ said Chief Roy Fox
The Blood Tribe welcomed Monday the rejection by First Nations chiefs last week of a landmark child welfare reform deal with the federal government, saying the agreement undermines its authority to make decisions affecting its people.
“The Blood Tribe opposed this proposal because Canada failed to seek our consent, violating its duty to meaningfully consult,” said Chief Roy Fox in a Monday statement.
“This agreement ignores the deep, ongoing harm caused by forcibly removing our children from their families and communities, severing their ties
to our ways of life as Kainaiwa people.”
The defeated deal was struck between Canada, the Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Assembly of First Nations in July after a nearly two-decades-long legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that was discriminatory because it meant kids living on reserve were given fewer services than those living off reserve.
The tribunal tasked Canada with reaching an agreement with First Nations to reform the system, and also with compensating children who were torn from their families and put in foster care.
The $47.8-billion agreement was to cover 10 years of funding for First Nations to take control over their own child welfare services from the federal government, create a body to deal with complaints and set aside money for prevention, among others.
Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which helped launch a discrimination case against Canada that led to the child welfare deal, says that even though the child welfare deal was rejected, there’s much to build on, including from the draft settlement agreement.
“This is a reset to ensure that First Nations kids all succeed,” she said.
On Monday, the Blood Tribe said it’s essential that the First Nation has control over child and family services to protect its children and uphold its authority, and wants funding to be “sufficient, long-term, and guaranteed.”
“This rejection sends a clear message: we will not accept half measures or temporary solutions,” said Fox.
Meanwhile, the Blood Tribe says it’s moving ahead with its family preservation code, which will give the First Nation the ability to govern its own children and family services.
— With files from The Canadian Press