Indigenous People To Receive Payouts for Surviving Canada Child Welfare System, but Larger Systemic Reforms Remain Stalled

By Nancy Marie Spears

Starting March 10, Indigenous people who went through Canada’s child welfare system can apply for compensation for harms caused to them.

Approximately 300,000 Indigenous children and families who went through Canada’s child welfare system can apply for compensation for harms the system caused them. 

The Canadian press reports that $23 billion in payouts under a historic class-action settlement will take six to 12 months to process. Those taken as children between 1991 and 2022 from “reserves” and the northwestern territory of Yukon are eligible to submit claims, as are their caregiving parents and grandparents.

The Assembly of First Nations is helping citizens apply through its Get Ready campaign, announced in a press release earlier.  The national advocacy organization for Indigenous communities across Canada will educate and guide First Nations claimants to avoid scams and receive the assistance they need during the application and claims processing period.

“While no amount of money can make up for the harms done by Canada’s racist child welfare system, March 10 will be a historic turning point to address these past wrongs,” National Chief Woodhouse Nepinak stated. “The $23 billion compensation settlement is an important recognition of the heroic representative plaintiffs and everyone who took part in the long process of negotiations that brought us to this point.”

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The pending payouts stem from a 2007 class-action lawsuit over the discriminatory treatment of First Nations children and families. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, an independent administrative body that hears complaints about discrimination, ruled on the matter in 2016. That ruling declared that families in Yukon and in reserves — the equivalent of a reservation in the U.S. — did not receive the same level of child and family services provided to other Canadians.

Yet as the claims process moves forward, a far larger and more systemic reform sought on behalf of Indigenous children and families remains stalled. 

A $47.8 billion payment to the First Nations Child and Family Services Program was initially approved last year, following an agreement between First Nations leaders and the Canadian government. The funding package designed to address the overrepresentation of First Nations children in Canada’s child welfare system would have covered a range of services to prevent child neglect and abuse and improve outcomes for young adults leaving the system. The agreement would have secured funding for 10 years, and addressed particularly high costs to deliver services in rural communities.

But in October, before the terms were finalized, First Nations leaders voted down the $47.8 billion settlement offer, amid complaints that it lacked transparency and accountability, among other concerns. 

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society which has been a party to the case for years, said the deal reached last year would have been too “secretive” and unreliable.  Indigenous leaders “want to make sure the money is secure, and stops the discrimination now and forever,” Blackstock said.

Some Indigenous leaders are now seeking to renegotiate the deal, although there is an ongoing dispute over whether parties such as the Caring Society should be involved. 

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Meanwhile, national politics in Canada may have introduced an additional unknown. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whose government presided over last year’s settlement agreement with First Nations that has since been rejected — has resigned, causing concerns over whether a new conservative government would honor future agreements. 

In December, the Assembly of First Nations revealed the results of a legal review it commissioned, warning that the $47.8 billion reform deal could be upended by a future government.

That worries Danielle Cranmer, citizen of the Acjachemen Nation and a clinical therapist and licensed social worker. She has been closely watching the child welfare lawsuits in Canada since many of her clients are from First Nations families.

“The Assembly of First Nations and other Indigenous governance bodies have every reason to scrutinize the potential ramifications of a government change,” Cranmer said. “If the current administration loses power, a new government could claim they are not bound by this agreement, further delaying or dismantling crucial child welfare reforms.”

Cranmer said ensuring long-term commitments to reforms are essential to addressing harms of the past and helping First Nations people heal. She’ll continue monitoring how the current case unfolds, in light of historic patterns. “This underscores the precarious nature of agreements made between Indigenous nations and settler governments — particularly when they hinge on political administrations that may not honor past commitments,” Cranmer said.

Blackstock, who is Gitksan First Nation and has decades of social work experience, agreed.

“That’s why it was so important to protect against a change of government by having these legal orders, instead of moving over to this final settlement agreement that didn’t hold Canada accountable and gave them such wide discretion,” she said. “Under an adverse government, that would put at risk a lot of the gains we’ve made for First Nations’ kids.”

Can anything be said with certainty about what lies ahead?

“The short answer is, we don’t know,” Blackstock said. “But what we do know is that the legal orders are binding on whatever political party is in the government.”

 

For more information on all classes under the settlement, visit www.fnchildclaims.ca.